Timothée Chalamet Wins SAG Award for Lead Actor in 'Complete Unknown'

Timothée Chalamet now has the elusive Hollywood award he couldn't seem to get, winning for his role as Bob Dylan -- and his record-setting victory came after his SAG Awards night got off to a rough start.

TC was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor for "A Complete Unknown," Sunday night, and he joined his costars Elle Fanning, Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro early in the evening to introduce clips from the film ... but reading the teleprompter was, apparently, harder than playing a legendary songwriter.

After flubbing his line and laughing at himself, Timothée joked ... "Shoulda done a rehearsal." It was a pretty smooth recovery, and he got to redeem himself again later in the night.

Timothée was up against some stiff, and veteran, competition -- Adrien Brody, Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Craig and Colman Domingo -- so, ya can't really blame him for saying, "I was not expecting this at all," when his name was announced as the winner.

At just 29 years old, he's the youngest to ever win the category, and it's clear how much it means to him, as he said ... “I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me. But the truth is, this was five and a half years of my life. I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero.”

This is the first of the major Hollywood acting awards Timothée's won. You'll recall, he openly mocked his many, many losses when he hosted 'SNL' last month -- but, last night he told the crowd he plans to take home several more -- "I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight. I’m as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there.”

BTW, Kylie Jenner wasn't at this award show -- she attended the Golden Globes with him last month -- but, instead, Timothée's mom Nicole Flender was by his side ... and, naturally, she got a shout-out in his speech.