‘Complete Unknown’ Team “Couldn’t Tell the Difference” Between Timothée Chalamet and Bob Dylan’s Recordings
Timothée Chalamet is gaining major praise — and a Golden Globe nomination — for his performance as a young Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, a transformation that the film’s team recalls seeing firsthand.
At the Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday, director James Mangold told The Hollywood Reporter that he knew Chalamet was the right choice to play the iconic musician “before he even agreed to do it,” as “he has acting chops bar none, he’s got the youth, he’s got the look, he’s got the cool, and I thought he could sing, but he surprised me how damn good he is.”
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Producer Peter Jaysen echoed the sentiment about the actor’s musical ability. He remembered recording the scenes of Dylan playing hit song “Like a Rolling Stone” before Chalamet arrived to set. “We had a band that was recording it, and we were watching Dylan on screens with the original isolated tracks that he recorded ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ singing with our band,” he recalled. “Then Timmy came in and sang and [Mangold and music producer Nick Baxter] had us close our eyes, and they started switching between Bob Dylan and Timothée Chalamet; we couldn’t tell the difference. That’s when we knew that we had something special.”
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A Complete Unknown follows the 1961 to 1965 time period of Dylan’s career as he arrives on the folk music scene and quickly shakes it up, with appearances by Pete Seeger (played by Edward Norton), Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook).
“We wanted more of Bob, more of Pete, more of Joan than you could fit into the movie,” Norton told reporters on the carpet, as Chalamet added, “We were like a menace to Jim because we were always trying to sneak stuff in and honor these amazing artists.”
Dylan himself was involved in the script process, meeting with Mangold multiple times to make changes. “He was super plainspoken and super honest about those times and those days and his memories of them,” Mangold said of their collaboration. “He read the script front-to-back and marked it all up, told me, ‘Oh I never sang that verse that way’ and kind of corrected little things: ‘This person always called me Bobby, not Bob.’ He was all over it.”
Dylan wasn’t involved in the shooting process, however, as Mangold added, “In a way, he let us run free. He saw the map I was following and just let me ride it.”
Barbaro — who has her own transformation into Baez after not having played guitar or sung prior to the film — also had an interaction with a legend when she had a phone call with the musician she portrayed. “I felt so lucky that she was willing to give me that time, and it was just very gracious of her. I admire her, and I love her, and I fully hung up the phone and just started sobbing,” the actress remembered.
Barbaro also called singing with Chalamet “one of the best things I’ve ever gotten to do in my whole career. His voice is beautiful as is. Wonka came out while we were filming, I was like ‘Oh wow, he can really sing.’ And then to hear his version of Bob was mind-blowing.”
A Complete Unknown hits theaters on Dec. 25.
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