When the opportunity to play Bob Dylan came knocking at his door, actor Timothée Chalamet didn’t take the opportunity lightly, the “Dune” and “Wonka” star now referring to himself as a “humble disciple in the church of Bob.”
Chalamet had five years to prepare for his performance of Dylan in director James Mangold’s upcoming biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” and he clearly did his research. In interviews, he describes living and breathing Dylan’s music (deep cuts and unreleased tracks included), watching press conferences, and training with vocal, guitar, dialect, movement, and harmonica coaches to nail the idiosyncrasies of the iconic Minnesota-born musician, on and off stage.
While the film follows Dylan’s life and career upon moving to New York City in the early 1960s, his upbringing in Minnesota was an integral chapter in the artist’s story—and this was not lost on Chalamet. He traveled to Minnesota on two occasions while in preparation for the role, during one of which he took a solo road trip from Minneapolis up to Duluth and Hibbing to visit Dylan’s former communities and residences.
On Thursday, the actor returned to Minneapolis for an early screening of the film ahead of its Christmas Day release. After greeting fans on the University of Minnesota campus and following Dylan’s footsteps through Dinkytown, he sat down for a roundtable conversation with press at The Main Cinema to discuss his preparation for the role and his fondness for Minnesota.
Photo by Macy Harder
The following quotes from Chalamet are in response to questions from several media outlets at a press event.
How did your trip to Hibbing inform your performance?
In more unspoken ways than not. I just feel like it kinda gave me the energetic information of what Bob went through growing up. I feel like as an actor, if you don’t know what somebody went through, you have the insecurity, in a sense, or the lack of information… especially coming from New York, [as to] what that would be like. So obviously, in a two-day trip, you don’t get the entire download of what that was like, but it didn’t demystify it for me, either.
I talked about this in the Zane Lowe interview, but it helped see that his home was a home. It wasn’t far from what I could relate to, and it helped [me] find my way in. It was something I had to do, especially with the amount of the time I had on my hands to do research for the role. Because, if I didn’t do it, it just would have been strange.
On a totally separate note, nothing to do with Bob Dylan, and I mean it sincerely, I loved it here. I love Minnesota and I find the people to be really generous and nice, generous in spirit. I just think it’s lovely out here, so I loved visiting Hibbing and Duluth.
Bob Dylan’s public persona is very much an enigma. How did you approach that as an actor?
We didn’t try to demystify the enigma. In some ways, playing an enigma or someone who’s enigmatic is almost easier, in a sense, because there aren’t the hard lines to follow of a character or story that was more classic in its three-act structure… somebody that went through addiction or somebody that went through a life tragedy. His is the story of someone who was quite successful, quite quickly. And I think it was James Mangold, the director of the movie, that actually made it engaging. Even [“Walk the Line”,] the Johnny Cash story, which our director did too, that’s clearly about the human struggle. Like I said, this is about someone who quite quickly was very gifted.
It’s kind of fraught to make parallels with my career, because I never want to put myself in the same boat as the legendary Bob Dylan, but it’s something I could relate to, where I feel like I did struggle with my career and I can speak to it in a different way. But equally, my career did take off when I was 21, 22. And the kinds of rooms I was in, kinda like these press conferences that Bob was doing very young, I was younger than what the intellectual circumstance was sometimes, in the rooms I was in.
Photo by Macy Harder
What attracted you to taking on this role?
Well, I knew very little about Bob Dylan, other than that a friend of my father’s growing up was obsessed, one of these Dylan maniacs, “Dylan-ologists,” with a striking black-and-white picture of Dylan on the wall. Before the music even, the press conferences and the way he really didn’t give a f**k, and I thought that was deeply attractive, and deeply almost against the times we live in. And I don’t say that resentfully, but it just seemed like he didn’t care, and I thought that was just bold, even before I knew any of the music.
I saw that you [said] “crying, screaming, pooping,” after you saw Bob Dylan’s tweet [endorsing your performance]. Did you get to spend any time with him before the film, and what does his tweet and approval mean to you?
Man the tweet was… I really couldn’t put it into words. That was the closest I could get to expressing how that felt. That other part you described was a typo [laughs]. No, [it was a] total dream come true. If my interaction with the legendary Bob Dylan is limited to that moment, it will have been more than I could’ve ever dreamed of, and just sort of mind-boggling and very affirming, because beyond the movie, he says “brilliant actor.” So that felt really good.
We all saw you have your tour around the U of M campus and “walk the walk” of Bob Dylan when he was there. What was your experience like today on campus?
It was great. I never got to have the classic American college experience, so I’m trying to truncate it in these three days. It was awesome. Obviously, he came here and went to this school for a little bit, and Dinkytown was very informative to his folk music obsession. I loved it. Like I said, I love Minnesota and I love the people here. It’s genuine. I went to Columbia for a little bit, that doesn’t really count as a campus, and NYU definitely doesn’t count as a campus, so this was like a little slice of life today.
Photo by Macy Harder
Could you share more about what your research in Minnesota looked like to prepare for this role?
It was two trips. The first time, it was only Minneapolis and Duluth. The second time, it was Minneapolis, Duluth, and Hibbing, where I was blasting Sun Records. I was trying to listen to all the music he would have listened to at the time, I was driving down the highway passing all sorts of strange Minnesota casinos [laughs]. And I was driving so fast, I hit the ice in the Ford pickup I was in, and skidded out—this was the second time I went—which was humbling, because I didn’t know how to drive on the roads out here.
I don’t really know how to describe those trips, they were just extremely informative and moving because, even on this trip right now… I just love it because as a 28-year-old New Yorker, I don’t think my path would’ve really brought me out here, ever. So the first time I got here, I thought, ‘Wow, what a gift of Bob Dylan, being in this guy’s world view.’ I was in Duluth, standing in an Airbnb above [Duluth’s Best Bread], and also there was a casino across the street again, so strange [laughs]. And I was just so grateful, cherishing it.
Through this process, what did you learn about Bob’s relationship with Minnesota? And how does that come through?
You know, there’s the Bob I play in the movie, and then there’s the real guy who’s alive and well, so I really can’t speak for him. God forbid he deletes that tweet, then I’ll feel terrible. But I think he’s very proud of his Minnesota heritage, and I think in some ways, the way I relate to it, though that’s not your question, is the Iron Ore in his songs and his voice… I felt like that in Hibbing. It informed the grit in his voice, in some way. It’s different than [if he] would have been raised in Hawaii, or something.
Or even the Beach Boys, I’m no scholar of the ’60s, but their music sounds like the way they grew up, you know. The way Bob Dylan’s music sounds like… his ’60s stuff, “North Country Blues” and “Rocks and Gravel,” that sounds like Hibbing. When I got to Hibbing… I was like man, this is what this looks like and sounds like. As a young hip-hop fan, I was like, oh wow, he was, in a different texture and different form, he was doing the same thing in the ’60s—representing where he came from through his music.
When you went up to the Northland, where there a specific location that really moved you emotionally, as you were researching Bob?
His house in Duluth, I never got to go inside of, though I think it’s owned by the same gentleman that owns his childhood home in Hibbing. But that was extremely moving. In Hibbing, going to the high school, going to the rec center where there’s the hockey arena. I also felt very moved that it was 2023, and I can’t even put it into words, but seeing how America had changed, or how it had modernized or decayed. And knowing Bob came up in a moment where it was post-’50s, he brought what he had to bring to that generation and realizing what a gift he was to the world, and also how communities had been hard-hit.
I had that experience too, in Hibbing and Duluth. I went, okay, this is great because it’s informing me [about] where he came from, but this is also a very different place. I never got to talk to Bob about the role, but the way I comforted myself was, the Bob Dylan of today is not the Bob Dylan of the early ’60s, because we all change.
One of the songs you perform in the movie is “Girl from the North Country.” This is a song where he’s obviously having all these adventures out East, somewhat distancing himself from his past. But here, he’s singing about what he left back home. As a performer, how did you get into that song and imagine what Bob might have been thinking when performing it?
Well, I don’t think anybody knows who that song is about. I think it was four people that claimed that song was about them, three or four. So, the great thing, Bob’s got works like “The Death of Emmett Till” or “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” that [are] very topical, but then songs like “The Times They Are A-Changin'” or “Girl from the North Country” that are purposefully obtuse, in my interpretation. Maybe he would disagree. So, I think it matters less who that song’s about, and more what it’s about, which is a love that he missed. Especially at that age, when you’re so confused all the time.
After going to Hibbing and spending time with the community and meeting folks up there, did you find yourself bringing any Minnesotan characteristics or quirks into your performance and your portrayal of Dylan?
Just the dialect, I hope. But I was noticing it, you know, I didn’t tell anybody I was recording them the whole time. You know, the hard “r’s” and all that. I was only here two days on the second trip, but it definitely stayed with me, and I definitely wanted to come back today, and for the rest of this trip.
Were there any Bob Dylan songs that were incredibly influential during the process of filming and now, during press?
Oh man, all of them. There’s no good answer. Everything, all of them. I did try to stay away from stuff from the ’80s or ’90s where his voice had changed, or you know, stuff that would sort of get me out of how he was in the ’60s. Even the books I would read, sometimes they’d go into chapters on the ’80s or ’90s, and I would try to stay away from it.
Some of our cast mates were able to talk to the people they were playing, and I would say to Jim [Mangold], like, ‘Should I reach out to those folks and maybe get their perspective?’ But you know, the winds of time affect everyone’s opinion. People tend to present a more flattering version of themselves, you never really know what happened. But back to your actual question, it was everything. And I continue to discover his music, there’s so much good stuff.
Photo by Macy Harder
I think it’s probably a big fear for any actor playing a real person, much less a real person who is living. Was there a particular moment or song during filming where you felt that [you] nailed the essence of [Dylan]?
I don’t want to sound overconfident, but every song. I swear to God, because I had lived with them for so long. I feel like I could be out of bounds in answering that question, because I don’t know if I necessarily had a hold of, ‘Is this gonna feel like Bob to an audience?’ It really just felt impactful to me when I was doing it. They all were very special to me and dear to my heart.
I’m just giving you the goods, the truth is, the lead-up to it was five years of practicing and messing up. Also Jim Mangold, the director of “Walk the Line,” which is a very, in my opinion, a very adept Johnny Cash biopic where it’s as much Johnny Cash as it is the story, I think Jim had his eye on that. I think I got more into the rock ‘n’ roll history and wanted to be to a T how Bob would’ve been. And Jim was much more wise about, ‘Hey, we gotta tell the story here.’ And it’s true, the movie wouldn’t be interesting to just see a guy doing covers. It’s more about, what does this mean in relation to the other characters in the movie? And what it would have been, at the time, for Joan Baez, or for Suze Rotolo, or Pete Seeger—how were they relating to Bob’s music? How was Bob relating to them? How was Bob relating to the fact that they maybe had an angle on him? We just sort of humbly brought life to that, and I’m very proud of that.
One could say this isn’t a high-stakes movie, but I sort of disagree, because this is the stuff of life, you know. In America, our culture can be our highest religious calling, because it points the way forward. I think that was true in the ’60s, I think it’s very true now, even more true now because we almost live in a harsher time.
What was it like navigating the character transition from someone like Bob Dylan to [your next role], Marty Supreme?
Great question man, I just finished that 12 hours ago. Both of those films take place in New York, both take place in the early ’60s in Greenwich Village, you know, the cultural renaissance. I don’t want to speak too much on it or Josh [Safdie], the director, will get mad at me [laughs]. But, I had a moment the day I wrapped Dylan, where I went to the production office, and I’d been listening to Bob’s music for a year straight, and I switched my playlist to the Marty Supreme thing. I was walking through the Diamond District, and I did have this out of body experience where like, woah, I’m leaving Greenwich Village and entering this sort of New York underworld.
But I woke up in Minnesota the day after I finished Marty. I don’t want to give too much away about that movie, but let’s just say I finished this really crazy thing, and woke up back in safe Minnesota, home of Bob Dylan. Like a warm blanket.
