Watch Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in first trailer for ‘A Complete Unknown’
The first trailer has been released for James Mangold’s upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, starring Academy Award-nominee Timothée Chalamet.
While various photos have surfaced of Chalamet in New York City shooting the movie, the trailer is the first official glimpse of the celebrated actor as Dylan. A Complete Unknown is set to arrive in cinemas in the United Kingdom in January, 2025, but will be released in the United States a month earlier.
In addition to starring Chalamet as a young Dylan, Edward Norton portrays Pete Seeger, and Elle Fanning plays Dylan’s love interest, Sylvie Russo, based on Suze Rotolo. The cast also features Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Buzt and Scoot McNairy.
The movie follows Dylan as he makes his way in New York after moving from Minnesota as a 19-year-old in 1961 with aspirations of becoming a professional singer-songwriter. A Complete Unknown charts his sharp rise from obscurity to musical messiah, inspiring a generation with his heartfelt protest songs before culminating with his controversial performance at Newport Folk Festival in 1965 that saw him go electric.
During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2023, director Mangold discussed the new project and revealed that he’d spent significant time with Dylan, who had given his blessing for the project. Additionally, Mangold claimed Dylan had “personally annotated” the script.
However, Mangold also ensured Dylan fans that A Complete Unknown isn’t a typical biopic, stating, “It’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time, the early ’60s in New York, and this 17-year-old kid with $16 in his pockets hitchhikes his way to New York to meet Woody Guthrie who is in the hospital and is dying of nerve disease.
As the trailer shows, Dylan befriends Pete Seeger, played by Edward Norton, and Mangold previously revealed that the film focuses on their relationship. “Pete sets him up with gigs at local clubs, and there you meet Joan Baez and all these other people who are part of this world, and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life, becomes a star, signs to the biggest record company in the world within a year, and three years later, has record sales rivalling the Beatles,” the director said.
Last year, during an interview with GQ, Chalamet explained how he fully absorbed himself in the world of Dylan in preparation for the film, and even recruited the vocal coach that Austin Butler used for Elvis ahead of shooting A Complete Unknown.
In the trailer, Chalamet is heard singing as Dylan, which shows his dedication to the role was worth the hours of practice. The New Yorker previously said of how he managed to get into the mind of the legendary singer-songwriter, “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.”
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