Timothée Chalamet spent about five years studying Bob Dylan for his Oscar-nominated role in “A Complete Unknown,” but he didn’t want to imitate the singer for the film.
Part of the challenge of playing the enigmatic and reclusive musician for Chalamet, was bringing himself to the role.
“Where does my heart and where does my soul fit into this? Can it fit into this, particularly with someone who was so masked,” Chalamet said.
Preparing to play Bob Dylan
Playing the singing and songwriting legend would be a daunting task for any actor, but when Chalamet was offered the role, he was 23 and says he knew very little about Dylan. A lot of people told him not to take it, but Chalamet seems to like a creative challenge.
Chalamet’s never met Dylan, but because of the COVID pandemic, strikes in Hollywood and other film commitments, the actor was able to do a deep dive into the musician’s life.
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“I give 170% in everything I’m doing, no, ‘But,’ there. I’m giving it my all. Something like the Dylan project, these aren’t watered-down experiences. I’m going Daniel Day-Lewis on all of them,” Chalamet said. “I’m not saying in process, but I’m saying a level of commitment.”
Chalamet, who’s 29 now, didn’t just need to figure out how to sing like Dylan, he had to learn how to play harmonica and guitar and about 40 Bob Dylan songs — far more than were originally called for in the script.
The actor told 60 Minutes that early in his research, he looked Dylan up on YouTube. He found a clip of Dylan performing “It Ain’t Me Babe” with Joan Baez, with whom Dylan had a romantic relationship, particularly insightful. Chalamet said he watched the clip at half speed.
“That was when I really slowed down, ’cause it’s fascinating the way Bob observes her,” Chalamet said. “And how he refuses eye contact in that video.”
Chalamet’s version, with Monica Barbaro playing Joan Baez, is one of the songs in “A Complete Unknown,” which came out in December.
As part of his preparation for “A Complete Unknown,” Chalamet watched an interview Dylan did with 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley more than 20 years ago.
“It’s a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your mind of what you’re about will come true. It’s kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self because it’s a fragile feeling and you put it out there and somebody will kill it, so it’s best to keep that all inside,” Dylan told Bradley during that interview.
Chalamet, who’s watched the interview “probably a thousand times,” took special note of what Dylan said about self-destiny being fragile.
“Especially early on in life, in your career, when you’re in your early 20s or late teens,” Chalamet said. “If you can find a way to keep it quiet, but also have a lot of confidence, it’s the best path, you know?”
Making “A Complete Unknown”
“A Complete Unknown,” set in the early 1960s, follows Dylan’s rapid rise from obscurity to stardom. Dylan was 19 when he arrived in New York City from Minnesota. He quickly became an icon in the world of folk music. Poetic and political, his songs spoke to the times and a young generation demanding change.
Dylan got his start in New York at a nightclub called Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Chalamet visited the nightclub during production.
“And it ain’t the same,” Chalamet said.
Instead of the folk music of Dylan’s days, he said they were playing Aerosmith covers and AC/DC.
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To connect with what might be behind Dylan’s mask, Chalamet disconnected from his own life for the two-and-a-half months of filming. He wouldn’t use his cellphone or have visitors on set.
“I’ve never approached a character so intensely as Bob, ’cause I have such respect for the material,” he said. “And I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I remembered that I was lazy on a day when something went wrong.”
Chalamet pre-recorded all the Dylan songs he’d sing in the movie. They were supposed to be played back on set during filming.
“It always sounded too clean,” Chalamet said. “The recording equipment’s too clean now, the guitars are too good. And Bob Dylan was drinking two bottles of red wine a day sometimes, smoking 30 packs of cigarettes.”
Chalamet said he held back on the wine. He decided he wanted to try and sing and play live on set. He did it for the first time in a scene depicting Dylan visiting his terminally ill hero, folk music legend Woody Guthrie, played by Scoot McNairy. Edward Norton is Pete Seeger.
Director James Mangold knew Chalamet nailed it on his first take.
“There’s a moment in that scene right at the last stanza where he holds a note,” Mangold said. “That would never have happened if we’d used the playback track.”
That moment was not in the song originally.
“He just did it,” Mangold said.
Chalamet said he didn’t plan it that way.
“It would be disingenuous to my, you know, the way I like to act and my approach to stuff,” he said.
Like Dylan, Chalamet is reluctant to talk about how he does what he does. If there is magic in acting, Chalamet doesn’t want to give it all away, joking it’s nobody’s business.
“And otherwise, it might not be as interesting as people think,” Chalamet said. “Or it could be a lot more interesting than people think. It might be more interesting than what I’m doing.”
From being wary of acting to making it his career
What Chalamet’s done in nearly two dozen films has been plenty interesting. In the “Dune” series, he transformed himself from the privileged son of a duke into a menacing messiah.
He’s played Laurie in “Little Women,” Willy Wonka in “Wonka” and a lovestruck teenager in “Call Me By Your Name.”
As a child, Chalamet didn’t dream of becoming an actor, though he was surrounded by them. He lived in a rent subsidized apartment complex in Manhattan full of artists. It left an impression.
“This building truthfully made me scared of acting,” Chalamet said.
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He witnessed firsthand how it could be a tough way to make a living. His mom, Nicole Flender, was a dancer and works with the Actors’ Equity Association.
His sister, Pauline Chalamet, is an actress, and Timmy, as his friends and family call him, booked occasional acting jobs as a child – though he said he really wanted to be a professional soccer player.
His father, French journalist Marc Chalamet, wasn’t exactly pushing him to act. Chalamet said his father was wary, thinking the world of acting wasn’t the place for a child.
“I think my dad was more just, like, ‘Be normal,'” Chalamet said.
High school was a turning point for Chalamet. He got into LaGuardia High School, a famously competitive public school for the performing arts.
“It’s a school that champions the arts,” Chalamet said. “So there I doubled down.”
He was cast as the lead in school musicals and developed routines for LaGuardia’s talent show as a rapper named Lil’ Timmy Tim.
Chalamet went to Columbia University for a year, and then some classes at New York University. But he dropped out, wanting to focus on acting full time.
“Listen, man, I was struggling. I was struggling. I was struggling with identity and I was struggling with…your sense of self-respect, your sense of drive or where you wanna be pales in comparison to where you are,” Chalamet said.
“Call Me By Your Name” changed everything. Chalamet was 21 when it came out, around the same age Dylan was when his career started to take off. Chalamet became the youngest person nominated for an Academy Award for best actor in nearly 80 years.
Is a Chalamet-Dylan meeting in the cards?
Chalamet still hasn’t met Dylan, even though “A Complete Unknown” has received eight Oscar nominations, including Chalamet’s second best actor nod.
“He doesn’t seem like he wants to be bothered by, not me, but by everyone in the last 60, 70 years,” Chalamet said.
Chalamet’s not sure what he’d say to Dylan if he ever did meet him.
“I would honestly just be like, I would play it super cool, you know? ‘Cause I feel like he’s probably used to so much hyperbole and praise,” Chalamet said.
Chalamet told correspondent Anderson Cooper he’d try to “out-Bob” him.” Not even mention the movie, maybe talk about the weather.
“What his favorite sandwich is, or somethin’ like that,” Chalamet said.
