Timothée Chalamet and Bob Dylan. Getty Images (2)
Bob Dylan has officially weighed in on the biopic A Complete Unknown — and Timothée Chalamet couldn’t be happier.
“There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role,” Dylan, 83, wrote via X on Wednesday, December 4. “Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”
He continued: “The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book.”
While it’s unclear whether Dylan has seen the film, his praise meant the world to Chalamet, 28, who replied to the tweet by writing, “Floored. I am so grateful. Thank you Bob.”
The actor also posted a screenshot of Dylan’s tweet via his Instagram Story on Thursday, December 5. “Screaming crying laughing screaming laughing pooping screaming crying,” he wrote alongside the snap. “THANK YOU BOB!!!! DREAM COME TRUE!!!!”
Chalamet stars as a younger version of the legendary musician in A Complete Unknown, which hits theaters Christmas Day. The film follows Dylan from the beginning of his career in 1960s New York to his famous electric guitar performance of “Like a Rolling Stone” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown.’ Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures
Dylan is not directly involved with the project, though director James Mangold told Rolling Stone last month that she sat down with the singer-songwriter multiple times before filming began.
“Bob would have these one-off lines that were so fantastic,” Chalamet told the outlet in a joint interview with Mangold, 60. “Jim has an annotated Bob script lying around somewhere. I’ll beg him to get my hands on it. He’ll never give it to me.”
From Jeremy Allen White’s upcoming Bruce Springsteen film, to Timothée Chalamet showing off his Bob Dylan-like vocals in A Complete Unknown, music biopics seem to be everywhere. Yet, these flicks aren’t a new phenomenon. Films centered around the lives of music icons have been captivating audiences for decades, from 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter, about the […]
Mangold noted that he “felt like Bob just wanted to know what I was up to,” adding, “’Who is this guy? Is he a s—head? Does he get it?’ — I think the normal questions anyone asks when they’re throwing themselves in league with someone.”
Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe last month, Chalamet called portraying Dylan on the big screen “the most unique challenge I’ve taken on,” particularly because he sang and played guitar live on set.
Edward Norton and Timothée Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown.’ Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures
“It was ‘Song to Woody,’ which is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs ever,” he shared. “It was the first one we shot in the movie. You couldn’t do it to a playback because it’s such an intimate scene. It’s in a hospital room with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. And I did it live and it went great.”
He added: “I’m making mistakes on the guitar a little bit here and there, but you can kind of fill those in after. I went home and I wept that night. Not to be dramatic, but it’s a song I’d been living with for years and something I could relate to deeply. And I also felt, I come back to this word a lot, I felt like it was the most dignified work I’d ever done.”
A Complete Unknown hits theaters on Wednesday, December 25.
