As Wonka is set to make its theatrical debut on Dec. 15, The Hollywood Reporter is looking back at all the actors who have played the iconic Willy Wonka.
The fictional character was created by British author Roald Dahl for his 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The character went on to appear in its 1972 sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, as well as several films starring Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp.
In the newest film, directed by Paul King, Timothée Chalamet portrays the extraordinary character at the center of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The movie focuses on a young Willy Wonka and how he became the beloved chocolate-maker, including when he first met the Oompa-Loompas on one of his earliest adventures.
Wonka also stars Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson and Keegan-Michael Key.
King previously told People magazine of Chalamet’s performance as Willy Wonka: “Obviously, he’s walking in the footsteps of some truly phenomenal performers who played the role before, so the bar was set very high.”
The filmmaker continued, “I think what’s so remarkable about his performance is not only that he is funny and mischievous and quite mysterious, as well — just like the Willy Wonka that people will know — but also, he brings such heart to the role and he’s a brilliant actor. He’s incredibly emotionally intelligent and can bring a great deal of emotional truth to the role.”
Below, THR has compiled a list of actors, from the big screen to Broadway, who have stepped into the legendary chocolatier’s shoes.
Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Chalamet has stepped into the shoes of the infamous chocolate maker in Paul King’s Wonka, which hits theaters on Dec. 15, 2023. The film, set prior to the events in the original 1971 movie, focuses on a young Willy Wonka and how he came to meet the Oompa Loompas on one of his earliest adventures.
In a May interview with Vogue, Chalamet shared the reason behind his decision to become the famous chocolatier. “To work on something that will have an uncynical young audience, that was just a big joy. That’s why I was drawn to it,” he explained. “In a time and climate of intense political rhetoric, when there’s so much bad news all the time, this is hopefully going to be a piece of chocolate.”
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp debuted his Willy Wonka in 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, more than 30 years after the original film was released. In the Tim Burton-directed him, which follows a young boy, Charlie (Freddie Highmore), who wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, Depp portrays a more unusual version of Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka.
During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2012, Depp shared his inspiration for the character, saying, “The idea behind Will Wonka, certain ingredients you add to these characters like Willy Wonka for example. I imagined what George Bush would be like incredibly stoned. And, thus was born my version of Willy Wonka.”
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory can be streamed on Max.
Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder’s legendary Willy Wonka debuted on the big screen in 1971 in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The film, directed by Mel Stuart, was based on the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, who also wrote the screenplay. The movie tells the story of Charlie (Peter Ostrum), a poor child who finds a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar and wins the opportunity to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory along with four other children from around the world.
In a 2002 interview with Larry King, Wilder, who died at age 83 in 2016, revealed the one stipulation he had to play the iconic candymaker. “I was offered the part. I read the [Roald Dahl] book. And Mel Stuart, the director, came to my home in New York,” Wilder explained at the time. “He said, ‘You wanna do it?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you, I will do it if I can come out, and all the crowd quiets down, and I am using a cane.’ Oh, my God. Willy Wonka is crippled. ‘And I walk slowly and you can hear a pin drop. And my cane gets stuck in a brick. And I fall forward onto my face and do a forward somersault and jump up, and they all start to applaud.’”
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is currently streaming on Max.
Christian Borle
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was adapted for a musical on Broadway in 2017 with Christian Borle taking on the role of Willy Wonka. The production opened in April 2017 and closed in January 2018 after 305 regular performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
Borle told Vogue in 2017 of his Willy Wonka costume, “As we were doing fittings, I said, ‘I’d really like for him to be put together and actually quite elegant and veer away from any cartoonishness.’ … The only thing that I’m not getting, which I’m disappointed about, is a cane that shoots fire — apparently that’s a safety issue or something.”
Crispin Glover
In 2007’s Epic Movie, Crispin Glover plays a bit more of a sinister version of Willy Wonka. The film, directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, spoofs the previous years’ popular movies, including The Da Vinci Code, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Pirates of the Caribbean and, of course, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Epic Movie can be streamed free on YouTube.
Douglas Hodge
Roald Dahl’s novel was adapted in 2013 for a musical at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London’s West End. Douglas Hodge stepped into the role of Willy Wonka for the show, directed by Sam Mendes. The musical ran for three years and seven months before closing in January 2017.
In a 2013 interview with the BBC, Hodge described his take on Willy Wonka as “quintessentially English”.
“He’s a brilliant, almost autistic, genius inventor: reclusive, separate and an innocent child,” he added. “He relates far better to children than he does to adults.”
Noah Weisberg
Once the Broadway production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which saw Christian Borle as Willy Wonka, closed, a U.S. tour of the show commenced in 2018. Noah Weisberg starred as the iconic chocolate maker in the musical adaptation, directed by Jack O’Brien. The U.S. tour first launched in September in Buffalo, New York, before closing in October 2019 in Tampa, Florida.
Weisberg spoke to KSNV in 2019 about taking on the iconic role, saying, “We have dug deep to make it more than just a whacky character. At first it was a little intimidating because so many of us grew up loving that Gene Wilder movie and now Johnny Depp, so you don’t want to mess it up. That’s the first thing.”
Cody Garcia
Following Weisberg’s run, Cody Garcia took on the role of the chocolate maker in the second U.S. national tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which kicked off in January 2020 and featured Non-Equity actors. Matt Lenz directed the tour, based on the national tour’s original direction by O’Brien. Though the musical was paused in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it resumed in October 2021 in Syracuse, New York, before closing its curtain for the final time in June of the following year in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 2022, Garcia told CBS Austin that Willy Wonka was a role they had always wanted to play. “Ever since I first saw the original film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when I was a child, this was a suit I knew I was going to wear one day,” Garcia said. “I grew up loving the book as well, not to mention the rest of Roald Dahl’s collection. I was always a fan of Wonka-isms. I’m genuinely thrilled to be going crazy playing the Candyman every night.”
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