1 on 1: Timothée Chalamet on transforming into Bob Dylan for 'A Complete Unknown'

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1 on 1: Timothée Chalamet on transforming into Bob Dylan for 'A Complete Unknown'

Yong Chavez,

ABS-CBN News

 | 

Updated Jun 25, 2025 01:03 PM PHT

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Stepping into the shoes of a cultural icon like Bob Dylan is no small feat, but in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet takes on the challenge with a dash of reverence and reinvention.

The film delves into the transformative moment in Dylan’s life when he transitioned from folk hero to electric rock pioneer, a move that ultimately cemented his place as a trailblazer.

With more than five years of preparation behind him, over Zoom in the thick of promoting the film amidst the holidays and Hollywood’s bustling award season, Chalamet shared with me about the complexities of bringing Dylan to life, what he found fascinating from the cultural landscape of the 1960s, and how the role pushed him to think deeper about his own artistic journey.

Yong Chavez: So great to see you again.

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Timothée Chalamet: Nice to see you. How are you doing?

Q: I’m good! I wanted to ask you first, this movie is, of course, about a legendary icon, but your performance also feels to me—it’s raw, it’s personal, and your own. Did you have that clarity from the beginning on how you were going to embody this character?

No, I didn’t. This was very much like having a piece of clay and getting to mold it and sculpt it, you know. I had a deep understanding of the artist, Bob Dylan, in the five and a half years I had to prepare for it and getting into all the instrumentation of the role. But truth be told, I didn’t know. There’s three versions of a script that exists. You know, there’s a script you read, there’s a script you shoot, and there’s the movie they edit. And I didn’t know. I knew I was very well prepared, and I knew I was in a master’s hands with James Mangold based on Walk the Line, the Joaquin Phoenix project.

Q: And while I was watching this, I remember you previously said something profound that felt like a line from a song. You said, “You have to realize that life is coming from you and not at you.” Some people take a lifetime to gain that insight. How did you come to understand that about life?

I think that was in a play. That was a line in a play I did. Thank you for being well-researched. I think, you know, I think that’s something you only learn with age. That sentiment, because by virtue of your relative proximity to your exit date from the womb, everything can seem like it’s coming at you. And then one day, you know, you wake yourself up by the sound of your own breathing, and you realize you’re aging, and then you realize that you’re just a collection of atoms.

Q: That memorable scene when Dylan was writing to Johnny Cash about fame—as someone who also goes through that level of public attention constantly, how did you relate to that?

I don’t know if I really did. I’m not dodging the question when I say it’s sort of like the least—it’s sort of the part of this journey or movie, or the Bob Dylan of it all, that I can excavate the least. Because what would seem obvious in the comparisons to you are obvious to me. It’s just like: it is what it is, and the ways they’re different are different too, you know. He was a brilliant lyricist in the ’60s, and I’m an actor in the 2020s, you know. So, the similarities you see are on the nose.

Q: Stepping into Bob Dylan’s shoes, someone who challenged and defined his own path, how did it leave a lasting impact on you as an artist and as a person?

Well, exactly that as you just put it. You put it so beautifully, just to blaze your own path and be true to who you are, not only in your work, in your art, but in your life. And make sure you’re thinking for yourself.

Q: Did you discover something about Dylan or the 1960s cultural landscape that completely surprised you?

Well, the 1960s cultural landscape, I would say the whole rock and roll is commercialism and folk music is purity, and, you know, pre-The Beatles, pre-Rolling Stones and Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, and it’s radio programming, and we’re folk musicians and we’re raw. There’s no contemporary metaphor to that so I thought that was fascinating. There’s no musical purity movement in the contemporary states. So that was sort of fascinating.

"A Complete Unknown" starring Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Monica Barbaro, and Elle Fanning, comes out in US theaters on December 25.

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