Timothée Chalamet will also sing as Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown’ out this December.
We’ve got our first look and listen at Chalamet (Dune, Wonka) doing his best Dylan impression on “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”. Scroll to the bottom of this post to watch it.
And just as important for a biopic as the star recreating the subject’s likeness and talent, A Complete Unknown also has Bob Dylan’s cooperation, involvment, and those all-important music rights. Here’s what director James Mangold has to say about the film and collaborating with Dylan:
“I’ve spent several, wonderfully charming, days in his company, just one-on-one, talking to him… I have a script that’s personally annotated by him and treasured by me.”
“The reason Bob has been so supportive of us making it, is it’s about, as in all cases I think of the best true-life movies, are never cradle to grave, but they’re about a very specific moment… In this case, it might sound [Robert] Altman-esque, but it’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time, the early ’60s in New York, and this 17-year-old kid with $16 in his pockets hitchhikes his way to New York to meet Woody Guthrie who is in the hospital and is dying of a nerve disease.”
“And he sings Woody a song that he wrote for him and befriends Pete Seeger, who is like a son to Woody, and Pete sets him up with gigs at local clubs and there you meet Joan Baez and all these other people who are part of this world, and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life, becomes a star, signs to the biggest record company in the world within a year, and three years later, has record sales rivaling The Beatles.”
Many years ago, Mangold also directed the Joaquin Phoenix-led Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line in which Phoenix did his best to sing like Cash much like Chalamet and Dylan here.
A new version of Cash will appear in A Complete Unknown played by Boyd Holbrook, who James Mangold previously directed in Logan. Prior to this weekend’s new release Deadpool & Wolverine, Logan served as the final story featuring Marvel Comics’ most famous member of the X-Men.
Mangold also mentioned this film’s versions of other big name folk music stars like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez (played by Ed Norton and Monica Barbaro). And Elle Fanning will portray Dylan’s love interest Sylvie Russo.
As of now A Complete Unknown should hit theaters in December.
