Timothée Chalamet promises ‘A Complete Unknown’ will make “perfect sense” to Bob Dylan fans
Ahead of the release of James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, lead actor Timothée Chalamet has reassured Dylan fans that the movie will make “perfect sense”.
The upcoming film follows Chalamet as Dylan as he makes his way in the New York music scene after moving from Minnesota as a 19-year-old in 1961 and the unlikely road ahead that awaits him after he unexpectedly becomes a huge star. A Complete Unknown is set for release on December 25th in the United States and January 17th, 2025, in the United Kingdom.
Mangold’s production is set over a four-year period, and A Complete Unknown promises to chart his sharp rise from obscurity to musical messiah status. It explores how Dylan inspired a generation with his powerful protest songs and the burden of that weight placed on his young shoulders, which culminates with his divisive performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
For Chalamet, the chance to devote himself to Dylan’s universe has been an illuminating experience. On December 2nd, he described it as “the greatest education a young artist could receive” at the Gotham Awards.
Chalamet was in attendance as Mangold received a ‘Visionary Tribute’ award for his work on A Complete Unknown. “I promised myself I’d keep it short and sweet, because Bob Dylan was a man of few words,” the New Yorker began his brief speech by saying, per Deadline.
The actor then explained what he hopes A Complete Unknown will achieve, adding, “If you’re already a fan of Bob Dylan, this will make perfect sense to you. If you’re not familiar with his work, perhaps our film can serve as the humble gateway to one of the great poets and chroniclers of our times.”
Reflecting on the experience, Chalamet continued: “I’m grateful to everyone who poured themselves into this project, everyone who helped me along this process.”
Furthermore, Mangold, who has been working on the project for five years with Chalamet, looked back upon the fulfilling journey to bring Dylan’s story to life, stating, “We started in Toronto in 2019 and since then, I feel like we’ve walked together, sharing song lyrics, sharing music … We have been waiting to make this movie for a long time and preparing for it. And the joy of it for me, more than anything, has been … making it and sharing this great, great process.”
Has Bob Dylan contributed to ‘A Complete Unknown’?
In 2023, Mangold revealed that he had cooperated with Dylan during the process of making the movie, and shared that the legendary singer-songwriter had “personally annotated” his script.
Furthermore, during an appearance on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, Mangold recalled his first meeting with Dylan, sharing, “It’s really interesting, y’know Bob, one of the early things, the first time that I sat down with him, and it was such an interesting question because he said, ‘What’s this movie about, Jim?’”
Mangold continued: “I didn’t have an answer, but what sprang out of me was, ‘It’s about a guy who is choking to death in Minnesota and leaves behind all his friends and family, reinvents himself in a brand new place, makes new friends, builds a new family, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to choke to death again and runs away. He smiled, and said, ‘I like that’. Essentially, that’s what I’m telling because you need a north star.”
In November, actor Edward Norton revealed that Dylan, who has a habit of being economical with the truth, insisted on the inclusion of one entirely fabricated scene in A Complete Unknown.
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