HOW DOES IT FEEL?

Bob Dylan Reviews ‘Timmy’ Chalamet’s Portrayal of Him

Chalamet’s portrayal of the singer in the 1960s is receiving early praise from Dylan and his fellow actors.

Legendary musician Bob Dylan finally weighed in on the upcoming biopic based on his life—offering effusive praise for star Timothée Chalamet’s performance as his early self.

“There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!),” the singer-songwriter, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, wrote in a short review posted on X.

Dylan wrote that title himself—it comes from the chorus of “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan’s 1965 single that featured electric guitars and rock instrumentation, much to the chagrin of folk music purists.

“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 also praised the book the script was based on—Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric, a 2015 book about his notorious set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. “It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ’60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport,” Dylan wrote. “After you’ve seen the movie read the book.”

A Complete Unknown doesn’t enter most theaters until Dec. 25, but Chalamet’s performance has gotten rave reviews—including some from his peers.

Both Chalamet and A Complete Unknown director James Mangold were given the Visionary Tribute award at the 2024 Gotham Film Awards on Monday.

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Oscar Isaac, Chalamet’s Dune co-star, introduced the actor and director, and offered high praise for the young actor’s portrayal of Dylan—who he called “the holy of holies for me.”

Isaac said Chalamet discussed the upcoming film while on the set of Denis Villaneueve’s 2021 sci-fi epic. “He starts telling us about his next project he was working on. A movie with the wonderful director James Mangold about a young Bob Dylan coming to New York in 1961. And my first thought, ‘It sounds like a really bad idea,’” Isaac said.

In 2013, Isaac starred in another beloved film about the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene—the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. The Coens’ film was based on the memoirs of Dave Van Ronk, one of Dylan’s contemporaries.

But Chalamet won over Isaac and his fellow Dune co-stars Stephen Henderson and Josh Brolin after he pulled out his guitar—which Isaac said he’d just started learning. Isaac said Chalamet’s on-set performance of “Girl from the North Country” sounded “not as if he was learning something new, but as if he was remembering something he’d always known—just rediscovering it.”

Zachary FolkFreelance Reporter

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