Timothée Chalamet went relentlessly Method to play Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown’
A new Rolling Stone cover story profiling Timothee Chalamet details the lengths to which the actor went to fully embody Bob Dylan for the upcoming biopic “A Complete Unknown.” According to Chalamet and his co-stars, he stayed in character and isolated on set to remain immersed in the character and not let his accent slip.
Chalamet talked about taking the process of becoming Bob Dylan very seriously because Dylan deserved his full attention. “It was something I would go to sleep panicked about: losing a moment of discovery as the character — no matter how pretentious that sounds — because I was on my phone or because of any distraction,” Chalamet said. “I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him. So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus. He deserved that and then more.… God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy. I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”
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That focus manifested in limiting his exposure to anything that would force him out of being Bob Dylan. Edward Norton, who plays folk singer Pete Seeger in the film, said Chalamet was “relentless” in his dedication. “No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing. ‘Nobody comes around us while we’re doing this,’” Norton said of Chalamet’s intensity on set. “We’re trying to do the best we can with something that’s so totemic and sacrosanct to many people. And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a f—ing audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”
Monica Barbaro, who plays folk singer and Dylan ex Joan Baez, said that Chalamet wasn’t so intense that he fully stayed in character even when the cameras were off — “It wasn’t ‘Don’t look him in the eye’ or anything like that,” she said. “We said hi, gave each other a hug. I was like, ‘I just saw Dune!’” But she did say that Chalamet did stay in his own world on set, similar to how Dylan did, which she thinks helped the fraught dynamic between Dylan and Baez in the film. And Chalamet really needed to stay in character, because if he started being Timmy too much, he would slip out of Zimmy’s voice.
Chalamet was listed as “Bob Dylan” on call sheets and production memoranda. Elle Fanning, who plays Dylan’s girlfriend Sylvie Russo, said during pre-production she thought she was scheduled for a meeting with director James Mangold and Bob Dylan himself, only to get there and find Chalamet.
“I’m probably the first person in life to be let down by having a rehearsal with Timothée Chalamet, right?” she joked. “Like, the first girl in history.”
“A Complete Unknown” opens in theaters on Dec. 25 via Searchlight Pictures.
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