This December, Timothée Chalamet will portray Bob Dylan in the film A Complete Unknown. The movie will follow a young Dylan from his arrival in New York City to his decision to go electric in 1965. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and strikes in Hollywood, Chalamet had years to prepare for the part. He worked hard to accurately portray the legendary musician.
Timothée Chalamet prepared tirelessly for his role as Bob Dylan
Chalamet had five years to prepare for his role as Dylan. He said that in this time, he became a Dylan obsessive. He began pushing himself further to embody the part.
“I had to push the preparation, the bounds,” he told Rolling Stone, “almost to psychologically know I had pushed it.”
Chalamet worked with a series of coaches to hone his guitar and harmonica playing, singing voice, dialect, and movement. He sang live on set and played the guitar because he didn’t think his performance would feel authentic otherwise.
“You can’t re-create it in the studio,” he argues later. “If I was singing to a prerecorded guitar, then all of a sudden I could hear the lack of an arm movement in my voice.”
His guitar teacher, Larry Saltzman, said Chalamet worked tirelessly to master the instrument.
“He never wanted to take the easy way out,” Saltzman said. “If I presented something to him like, ‘OK, this is the real way, but there’s a little bit of a shortcut,’ his answer to that was always ‘Don’t show me the shortcut.’”
Timothée Chalamet said he sees his own career in Bob Dylan’s
Chalamet admitted he didn’t know much about Dylan before accepting the role. As he learned more about the artist, he saw pieces of himself in him. He said the early stages of Dylan’s career mirrored his own in some ways.
“If he couldn’t become Elvis or Buddy Holly immediately he found Woody Guthrie and stuff that was a little more accomplishable, and happened to be really good at it,” Chalamet said. “And that immediately hit a bone with me.”
Chalamet explained that he initially wanted roles in large franchise films, but found that he was only able to land parts in indie films.
“I was knocking on one door that wouldn’t open,” he said. “So I went to what I thought was a more humble door, but actually ended up being explosive for me.”
He explained that he sees his starring role in the Dune films as his “going electric” moment.
He revealed 1 scene that he found particularly moving
In one of the film’s early scenes, Dylan sings “Song for Woody” to his hero, Woody Guthrie, in his hospital room. Chalamet performs the song from beginning to end in a performance that co-star Edward Norton described as “off-the-charts great.” Chalamet said he felt very affected by the scene.
“I went home and I wept that night,” he said. “Not only because ‘Song to Woody’ is this song I’ve been living with forever, and I felt like we brought it to life, but also because I felt like I could take myself out of the equation. The pride I was feeling had no vainglory in it. I just felt, ‘Wow, this is like old-school theater or something.’”
He said he felt honored to shed light on a historical moment.
We’re, like, bringing life to something that happened, and humbly and bravely going on this journey to hopefully bring it to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t know about it. That felt like an honorable task.”
