Timothée Chalamet was so “relentless” in his efforts to become Bob Dylan for the biopic A Complete Unknown that he went for three months with “no visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing,” according to his co-stars.
Edward Norton, who plays folk music icon Pete Seeger in the film, told Rolling Stone he “agreed totally” with Chalamet’s “relentless,” insular approach. “It was like, we cannot have a f---ing audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”
Chalamet admitted to the outlet that it “sounds pretentious” to be so intense about his method acting, but “panic” is what fueled him. He didn’t want to “lose a moment of discovery as the character” because of “my phone or because of any distraction,” he explained, “so while I was in it, that was my eternal focus.”
He was so committed to capturing Dylan that his name even appeared as Bob Dylan on the film’s call sheet. Elle Fanning, who plays Dylan’s girlfriend in the early ’60s, Sylvie Russo, told the magazine that the call sheet name swap initially set her up for some disappointment when director James Mangold invited her to meet “Bob,” during pre-production.
“I was thinking about all these things to say and ask,” she said. “I was picking out my outfit [and thinking] ‘I’m meeting Bob Dylan today!’”
A longtime Dylan fan, Fanning noted that she felt “let down” when she took the meeting and saw Chalamet instead. “I’m probably the first person in life to be let down by having a rehearsal with Timothée Chalamet, right? Like, the first girl in history,” she told the magazine. But she was prepared that Chalamet would “keep to himself” once filming began.
Actress Monica Barbaro, who plays another of Dylan’s real-life exes in the film Joan Baez, said of Chalamet’s method acting in their first meeting, “It wasn’t so full-on,” in the sense that “It wasn’t ‘Don’t look him in the eye’ or anything like that.” But she also explained that during filming, the brief moments when Chalamet would let his guard down to chat with her on set came at a cost, as he’d start to lose his Dylan accent. “At that point I think we both were just like, ‘Nope, no more talking!’”
Chalamet has no regrets about his commitment to the role, he told the magazine. “I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him,” he explained. “God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy. I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”
