A Freewheelin’ Conversation With Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro

If there was any doubt as to how Bob Dylan feels about Timothée Chalamet playing him in A Complete Unknown, it ended on Dec. 4, when the 83-year-old Nobel Prize-winning legend declared on X, “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.”

Whichever version Chalamet conjures up — and it’s really a combination of all three — will not lack for preparation. The superstar actor, 28, has immersed himself in all things Dylan since first attaching himself to the project in 2019.

In the intervening five years (there were delays because of COVID-19 and the Hollywood strikes), Chalamet taught himself to play guitar and sing as Dylan. Which he does in Unknown — to revelatory effect. The Searchlight Pictures film leans heavily on Dylan’s repertoire, with Chalamet interpreting entire classics like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”

The result is event cinema of a different type: a generational movie star embodying a mythic music titan of an earlier era.

Based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 best-seller Dylan Goes Electric!, the film dramatizes the earliest — and, yes, sexiest — years of the Dylan phenomenon. It begins with Dylan’s mysterious arrival in Manhattan in 1961 at age 19; then chronicles his dizzying ascent to singer-songwriter god status; and concludes with a near-riot when he chooses to rock out at the normally staid Newport Folk Festival of 1965.

Along the way, the young troubadour finds himself the object of multiple young women’s affections, most notably Suze Rotolo, the activist girlfriend pictured with him on the cover of his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (in the film she is played by Elle Fanning and has been slightly fictionalized as the character Sylvie Rosso, a script request made by Dylan) and established folk artist Joan Baez (Top Gun: Maverick‘s Monica Barbaro, 34, in a breakout role).

The three stars, accompanied by director James Mangold — who knows his way around the genre, having directed the Oscar-winning 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line — convened with THR on a wet, frigid night in New York’s Tribeca for their first group conversation about the thrilling, occasionally white-knuckle journey to resurrecting the heady days of the Greenwich Village folk scene and the lightning-in-a-bottle arrival of a newcomer from the Midwest.

Who is the biggest Bob Dylan fan in the room?

MONICA BARBARO I think Elle. And probably Jim.

JAMES MANGOLD I wasn’t until I made the movie. I was a fan, but the biggest fan was Elle.

ELLE FANNING I had posters of him on my wall and wrote his name on my hand every day, partly to be cool. When people in junior high would ask me, “Who is that?” I’d be like, “You don’t know?” I worked with Cameron Crowe when I was 13 [2011’s We Bought a Zoo], and he played Bob Dylan a lot. He would play “Buckets of Rain” over and over again. That’s when it started.

MANGOLD My dad played the greatest hits albums in his VW. I loved it, but it was kind of my dad’s music. I was Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Then in college, Infidels came out and I listened to that around the clock. But it wasn’t like I was dreaming of making a Bob Dylan movie. It was this particular story that pulled me in.

Timothée, you play guitar in the film. Did you come into A Complete Unknown already knowing how to play?

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET Not really. There’s one scene in Call Me by Your Name where I’m fingerpicking. I learned to fingerpick from a heavy metal Italian player. But I had five years to learn guitar for A Complete Unknown. Jim found a great guitar teacher named Larry Saltzman, who has worked with other actors like Meryl Streep on Ricki and the Flash. He’s a huge Bob fan.

The five years was due in part to a number of delays. Are you happy you had them?

CHALAMET I was thinking about this today. There were three pauses: One was COVID. Then there was the summer before last, when the actor strike hit. I think Monica probably was the most excited to get another year under her belt prepping Joan. Then we finally got it going. I don’t know if I’ll ever get this much time to work on something in advance.

MANGOLD When we started shooting, his [musical] growth was exponential. It was pretty miraculous.

What was your music background, Monica?

BARBARO I didn’t sing or play guitar or anything, and when Jim first emailed me telling me I had the job, I freaked out and then ran to get this guitar. At that point, I thought I had five months, and I panicked. I was absolutely terrified.

James, you consulted with Dylan. What’s it like to sit with the actual Bob Dylan to discuss the film you’re making about his life?

MANGOLD It was a pleasure. It was not mysterious, like, “Whoa, he’s the Mad Hatter and has seven masks.” He had seen Copland, my second movie. He had questions about it, he liked Sylvester Stallone in it. Really kind of regular.

The most interesting aspect that came out of that time with him — besides a green light to make the movie — was that Bob also was a little baffled about the events that went down in the course of our movie. He wasn’t as dogmatic [about playing folk] as people assume. Bob loved rock ‘n’ roll from the beginning. It wasn’t like he came to New York to become only a folk musician. It’s what happened. I really identify with him in that he never had a box for himself in his mind.

It really does mimic your career, where you have made so many different kinds of movies. You can never say you’re “this kind” of filmmaker.

MANGOLD Billy Wilder didn’t make a comedy until his 15th movie. I haven’t even gotten close to 15 movies. And yet Wilder is known as a “comedic director.” Like directors are supposed to brand themselves and they represent a certain kind of filmmaking. I avoided that, maybe because my first movie, Heavy, was about a lonely guy in an upstate diner. My second movie [Copland] was this star-studded cop thing. Then I went and made Girl, Interrupted, which is an all-female movie-star picture. At that point, no one knew what the hell I was, and I kind of thought it was awesome.

Monica and Elle, what do we learn about Bob Dylan in this film in terms of how he relates to and treats women? Was he good for women?

FANNING Suze was very politically active at the time and brought Bob into that. He wasn’t as interested in that before they met. She knew him as the boy from Minnesota, before the glitz and the fame and the funky hairdo. Bob wasn’t the nicest to her at times, but she tolerated things from him. I wanted to honor what they had because that first love is so precious and I think we’ve all experienced that. She has a real sense of power and groundedness.

MANGOLD Elle has a super hard role because it has no guitar, honestly. She’s the one civilian in this crowd, and she makes you empathize with her character. She gave her character tremendous dignity, that she’s actually inspiring Bob, feeding him ideas for songs, guiding him to sing his own music instead of keeping doing oldies.

Timothée, is it true you were being referred to as “Bob” on set and staying in character between takes?

CHALAMET No. I wouldn’t say no to [being addressed as “Bob” on set], but I feel like — well, what’s the question?

Let me in on your thinking, in terms of what sounds to have been an obsessive commitment to playing Dylan?

CHALAMET It’s the furthest I’ve stretched myself. And it became so biblical to me in terms of this man’s life and his work that I felt if I let my focus err for a second, that I’d be self-loathing about it for years to come. I had three months to play Bob Dylan and the rest of my life I don’t get to be about that, so why not give it my all?

MANGOLD Can I say that stuff pisses me off? The whole, “Did everyone have to call you Bob?” Because it’s not obsessive. If I were managing a baseball team, and I had a pitcher and we were in the fucking World Series, do I want him fucking walking down a hallway with a hundred people going, “Orel!” No, I want him fucking focused. I want him thinking about his fastball. I want him thinking about his job. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re not here to sign autographs. We’re not here to entertain. We’re here to make a fucking movie about a character and the shit-ton of judgment going to be leveled on that young man’s shoulders. Any level of focus that he’s asking of himself, to me, should be honored and not called obsessive. It’s called doing your fucking job. That’s just my two cents on that.

I didn’t mean to be disparaging at all.

MANGOLD No, I know that, but we’ve slogged through this.

FANNING Normally first ADs and stuff on movies, they always call you by your character name. They do it because it’s on the call sheet.

CHALAMET They do typically call you your character. But all that stuff about in-character Method work, that’s really not how I pushed this. There’s stuff you pointedly avoid, like cellphone use or things that are nakedly contemporary that could throw you. But [Method] wasn’t my MO at all. I realized how funny it was when Elle pulled me aside and said, “They told me I have a rehearsal with Bob. I got so excited. I thought Bob Dylan was coming, and it’s Timmy.”

Kid Cudi has always been my favorite artist. And all of a sudden I became as deeply obsessed and a fan of and moved by someone else’s music. And I was tasked with playing him. So the obsession I had with one artist now shifted to another. That’s how it felt in terms of responsibility.

You do a lot of smoking in this movie. Were those real or prop cigarettes?

CHALAMET Both. In Don’t Look Back, Bob is reading in a newspaper clipping about himself. It says, “Puffing heavily on a cigarette, he smokes about 80 a day.” Then he goes, “Thank God I’m not me.”

James, did you keep real Bob away from Timmy Bob?

MANGOLD He just disappeared. He had those meetings with me about the script, and then he just did his tour and did his thing.

What involvement is Dylan having in the rollout of this film, if at all? Is he going to be at the premiere?

MANGOLD I have no idea. Ask him. [Editor’s note: Dylan skipped the Dec. 10 premiere in L.A.] I think Bob has done a really wonderful job of protecting his own focus all his life. And that’s all I’d say.

If you do meet him, Timothée, what do you think you’ll say?

CHALAMET “Thank you.” That’s what I said to Kid Cudi when I met him. Just, “Thank you.” Nothing to do with the movie. Just offer admiration for a person who moved you with his work.

Monica, you did meet Joan Baez — or at least spoke to her on the phone. How did that go?

BARBARO I did. It was just a funny moment where I kept trying to wave my white flag and be like, “This is all done out of respect. And yes, I’m singing as you, but I could never be you.” Doing that whole dance. And she’s just like, “I’m just outside listening to the birds.” She is Joan. She’s not so concerned with protecting [her legacy] or hovering over it. She signed over her songs [to the film], all her arrangements. She and Bob are sort of similar, in that they’re not so obsessed with dictating this idea of who they are and who they were. They’ve been in the public eye for so long.

MANGOLD It’s a movie about something so long ago. It’s almost their childhoods. You’re talking about 20-year-olds. You’re talking about the turbulent relationships of a bunch of people in their 20s.

BARBARO They could come out of the woodwork and be like, “This movie sucks. It’s nothing like me.” You have no idea what will happen. And they’re vocal people, so who knows?

MANGOLD Thanks, Monica!

BARBARO I thought about that every day trying to sing as Joan.

I think there’s a better chance their music will now translate to younger generations.

MANGOLD Movie aside, there’s an incredibly persuasive argument to be made about the power and beauty of this music — the simplicity of it and the lack of overproduction and the lack of corporate involvement. It didn’t feel like it was a product.

I think Walk the Line refreshed Johnny Cash’s image — from the old guy covering Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” into the young, charismatic renegade he was when he shot to stardom.

MANGOLD We sold a lot of Johnny Cash records, that’s for sure. What I’m always curious about is demystifying that branded image that almost turns them into kind of like a Marvel hero. What’s underneath it? How did they get there? A series of events happened and suddenly they’re empowered and not necessarily even wanting everything that came with their success. You never dreamed of being a “voice of the generation.”

Do you identify with that, Timothée — this idea of having all this stuff thrust upon you that you weren’t necessarily looking for?

CHALAMET Yes and no. As an actor, your roles change from project to project. People whose music is celebrated, that is a different thing. The closest metaphor I could think of in movies is if you’re writing, directing and starring in your own project.

I’m referring more to his fame. There’s a scene when Bob dips into a bar to listen to some Irish folk music and a mini riot breaks out. It’s a tense, scary scene. I did see parallels to you attending your own look-alike contest recently in Washington Square Park. Why did you go?

CHALAMET I wanted to see who had the goods. The way Dylan played with his fame is so counterintuitive, especially in 2024. He had this Newsweek profile come out in the early ’60s where they had reached out to his family and he had made up a backstory about being from New Mexico. He sort of never gave a straightforward interview ever again. The way he conducted himself in relation to fame blows my mind.

Do you admire it?

CHALAMET Yeah. Not in the sense of some vain idea of playing with people’s heads. It’s more the gumption. I don’t know how to say it better than that.

This film documents a counterculture scene that just doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Is there an analog in our time?

MANGOLD It wasn’t like the leftists in the Greenwich Village only were with one party. They questioned everything, and they saw lies on both sides. I was very fastidious about not making the movie about [politics]. Not because I was scared of it, but because it would overwhelm the characters. And what I like to do is make movies about characters.

Dylan also rejected being a political figure — even though his songs became political anthems.

MANGOLD There are only a few songs where he cites a specific crime against humanity. Most of it is kind of like, “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” That’s kind of brilliant, because he was speaking to everybody, from wherever they are, about how they’re going to find common ground or answers — instead of prescribing what the answers are.

The climax of the film is a near-riot at a folk festival, all because Bob Dylan simply wanted to play electric guitar. We’re living in an era where genres bleed into one another and hit music is made on laptops. How will Gen Z interpret that?

CHALAMET Bob could speak to it because he’s alive and well in Malibu, but my interpretation is that folk music was almost like a texture for him. He wanted to be like Buddy Holly or Little Richard or Elvis. That avenue wasn’t really open to him. So he found folk music, which at the time was often topical songwriting. And at some point, he went back to the original texture that he was fond of, which was this rock ‘n’ roll-style of music that The Beatles and a lot of British rock bands were popularizing.

MANGOLD He was the folk scene’s headline act. If he left their genre of music, they suddenly had no king. I think that’s really interesting but also kind of desperate — that they were not recognizing what a blessing it was that this guy brought all this into their world. That they were now expecting him to stay out of a kind of duty. So his albums are in rock instead of folk. Big deal. It was about turf and tribalism.

It did make me think about Beyoncé going country. It was an artistic evolution, a political statement, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But a lot of people also embraced it.

BARBARO I went to a concert of hers once, and I remember there was a very long, quiet, beautiful moment where she said, “Thank you for letting me evolve.” And that stuck with me forever.

What was it like watching the film for the first time, Timothée? Did you like what you saw?

CHALAMET Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, deeply. I was honored and counting my lucky stars that we got to bring this to life. Because nothing’s a given. No opportunity is a given. No career is a given. I talked a lot about this with Edward Norton [who plays Pete Seeger in the film]: the gift to work on something where every day — whether listening to the musicians we were playing, or the musicians that inspired them, or reading the authors that inspired them — you learn more about yourself.

This story appeared in the Dec. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.