Timothée Chalamet on playing Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown’: ‘He wouldn’t let himself be boxed in’
Timothée Chalamet looks and sounds eerily like the young Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” In this new featurette from Searchlight, he talks about taking on this demanding role, which required him to play the guitar and harmonica while singing such classic tunes as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” As the Oscar nominee notes,”Bob wouldn’t let himself be boxed in, which for me as a young artist is the most inspiring.”
The film, which is out on Christmas Day, chronicles the rise to fame of Dylan. The Minnesota native was just 19 when he moved to New York’s Greenwich Village in 1961. He soon cracked the folk music scene and rocked his fans in 1965 with his electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
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“A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold weighs in on the decision to record all the musical performances in real-time. He and Jay Cocks adapted Elijah Wald‘s 2015 bestseller “Dylan Goes Electric!” We also hear from three actors who portray musical icons — Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie — plus Elle Fanning who is Sylvie Russo (a fictionalized version of Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo). And while we see Edward Norton as folk music legend Pete Seeger, we don’t hear from the three-time Oscar nominee in this featurette.
We only got confirmation a few weeks ago that “A Complete Unknown,” which was filmed earlier this year, will be out in time to qualify for this year’s Oscars. It just cracked our Oscar predictions for the 10 Best Picture nominees while Chalamet looks like a sure thing to reap his second Best Actor bid and Norton is on the move in the wide-open Best Supporting Actor race.
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