Yahoo Lifestyle Bob Dylan Praises Timothée Chalamet as a ‘Brilliant Actor’: ‘He’s Going to Be Completely Believable as Me’
For the first time, Bob Dylan has publicly acknowledged the upcoming biopic about his early years in New York, “A Complete Unknown,” which stars Timothée Chalamet as the young folk music legend.
“There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role. Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me,” Dylan wrote on X, a platform on which he has recently become active.
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He continued, “The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book.”
Dylan’s social media post implies that he has not yet seen “A Complete Unknown,” which received positive first reactions from journalists and film influencers. Though, Dylan has been somewhat involved in the making of the movie, as director James Mangold told Rolling Stone that he sat down with Dylan multiple times, and that the 83-year-old singer gave notes on the script. Plus, his manager Jeff Rosen is credited as a producer of the film.
Out Dec. 25, “A Complete Unknown” follows a young Dylan as he arrives in New York in the early 1960s. The film tracks the music legend as he becomes a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene and befriends people like Joan Baez (played by Monica Barbaro) and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). The film ends after Dylan straps on an electric guitar at Newport Folk Festival in 1965, playing “Like a Rolling Stone” and revolutionizing the genre.
“A Complete Unknown” is written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, and — as Dylan mentioned — based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book “Dylan Goes Electric!” The rest of the cast includes Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo (a fictional character based on Dylan’s then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo), Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, P. J. Byrne as Harold Leventhal, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman and Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth, among others. The film is produced by Fred Berger, Alex Heineman, Peter Jaysen, Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer, Rosen, Chalamet and Mangold.
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