Hollywood is buzzing that Timothée Chalamet will be the youngest person to ever win a Best Actor Oscar for his impressive performance as music legend Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.
The 29-year-old It boy chats to Woman’s Day about playing the Like A Rolling Stone icon in the film, in cinemas Thursday.
How did the process of playing someone as iconic as Bob Dylan start?
For me, it started with the music before there was even a start date. This started really, for me, in Covid, sort of bored and this song, Ballad Of A Thin Man, the live version that is in the Martin Scorsese documentary.
That was my way in. I dove into his music from there. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. To this day I discover new music. What we see in this movie is just a small chapter of his life.
You sing and play guitar as a young Bob Dylan in this movie. Why was it important for you to sing and play live?
Because if I can actually do it, why should there be an element of artifice here? I’m proud that we took that lead.
What makes Bob Dylan’s performing style unique?
It’s a lot of down strokes. His strumming pattern in the early ’60s was very different. I have heard some people say his guitar-playing peaked in the ’80s and ’90s – that he was getting better, in other words.
The two craziest things to me are how the purists are hard on his guitar playing, or are hard on his voice.
How did you go about learning how to sing and play like him?
I’d drive to a little studio that’s totally off the map in Burbank. It’s great. I worked with Nick Baxter, who was the musical supervisor, and we really did it in all sorts of different ways.
We would do things that don’t really have the reference tracks and we would do some that are mimicking Bob exactly.
But because I have that golden playlist [Timothee has 12 hours of unreleased Bob Dylan music], I would be like, “Well, he did it actually this way on this take…” And Nick will go, “Well, I don’t have that reference…”
Is it true that you haven’t actually met Bob despite him being involved in this project?
I’ve never met him, no. I would love to. My feeling for the last four years has been, God forbid I meet him and he was like, “No!” That is honestly my fear.
But I would love to meet him now. I have seen him live. He was absolutely brilliant. It was magical. It was spectacular.
Do you know if he has heard you sing any of his songs?
There was some rumour that he would come and listen to the music, but I don’t know.
Has he made contact with you in any other way – a note maybe?
No, that would be the least Bob thing ever! He made modifications to the script. He has lines that are his in the script that I relished.
Well there was one I remember mentioning to Jim Mangold [director James Mangold]. I said, “This is good, man! Where did you come up with this?” He goes, “Bob put that in.”
He has the Bob annotated script. I am going to ask Jim for it [laughs]. He won’t give it to me but I want it, with the annotations.
What was your connection to Bob Dylan before this role came to you?
My connection to his music was basically non-existent. I had a friend of my dad’s who was one of these Dylan-obsessed fans, who, when I would go to his house growing up, had one of his early Daniel Kramer black-and-white portraits on the wall. So I was familiar with the face of Bob Dylan, and the striking image.
But then when they approached me with this project, it was at a time when my career was emerging and I was having to be very obedient about having to do press and media for the first time.
Watching him in press conferences from 1965 in San Francisco, and seeing how he would do it I was like, “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this.” It was very inspiring.
You worked with Austin Butler on Dune who of course played Elvis in a biopic. Did you ask him any advice about how to play a music legend?
I have been picking Austin’s brain nonstop. But let’s let my film come out before I am so lucky as to get included with Austin.
He did such a phenomenal job. I will be lucky to do anything to compare with him.
But I am deep in the Bob Dylan lore now and I know he had tremendous respect for Elvis and Sun Records.
You mentioned your golden playlist of 12 hours of unreleased Bob Dylan tracks. How do you sleep at night knowing that those are in your possession?
Yeah, it’s not easy. I feel so deeply respectful of his world, of Dylanologists. I don’t want to be flippant or braggadocios.
You have played Paul Atreides, Willy Wonka and now Bob Dylan. Which of those roles has given you most sleepless nights?
All three (laughs). There’s something about when you embark on a story that’s 100 per cent original, and you’re really shining your flashlight into the dark. Willy Wonka, Paul Atreides and Bob Dylan, these are dangerous characters to go near.
People are rightfully very protective of them because they already exist, in a significant cultural, if not emotional, place. There are many people who don’t want you to go near them, understandably.
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