Timothée Chalamet is using the team from ‘Elvis’ to help him prepare to play Bob Dylan
Timothée Chalamet has revealed he’s hired the team that helped Austin Butler in Elvis as he prepares to portray Bob Dylan in a new biopic.
Chalamet has signed on to appear as Dylan in A Complete Unknown, which has now been in the works for over three years. In the summer, director James Mangold revealed the legendary singer-songwriter had “personally annotated” and helped with the planning of the movie. While it remains in pre-production, filming was slated to begin in August before the SAG-AFTRA strike derailed plans.
In a new interview with GQ, Chalamet frequently referenced Dylan and revealed: “I’ve basically been working with his entire Elvis team for my Dylan prep. There’s a wonderful dialect coach named Tim Monich. Vocal coach named Eric Vetro. Movement coach named Polly Bennett. I just saw the way he committed to it all, and realised I needed to step it up.”
Vetro also spoke to the publication to provide more light on Chalamet’s preparation, stating: “It’s taking on all the characteristics of Dylan’s voice and his mannerisms and his speech patterns, and bringing that into the music – so that when you hear Timothée do the music, what you’re really getting is the essence of Bob Dylan. You’re not getting an impersonation of him. It’s breathing new life into that voice we know so well.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Chalamet revealed that he’s recently been rereading Dylan’s book Chronicles as he continues in his phase of “Dylan-ing hard”.
The actor also revealed life lessons he’s picked up from the book, noting: “You need your ability to imagine, your ability to observe, and your ability to experience. And if any one of those is compromised, your ability to create is compromised in some way.”
Chalamet is also set to star in the upcoming Dune: Part Two and detailed why he found working with Austin Butler “inspiring”.
He explained: “I can’t overstate how inspiring it was to me personally… Because here was someone who’s a little older than me, but generationally we’re similar, and I don’t know how he would put it, but his journey was different than mine.”
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