Taking on the role of Bob Dylan for James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet sang Dylan’s songs so well that people on set debated whether he was lip-syncing or not. He also used a method approach to staying immersed in his role.
In Chalamet’s Rolling Stone cover story published Monday, the actor’s co-star Elle Fanning recalled hearing Chalamet sing as Dylan while filming.
“We were in an auditorium, and I was sitting amongst all these background artists. Jim would let Timmy come out and give the crowd a whole concert. He was singing ‘Masters of War’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ and I was like, ‘Jesus.’ All of us were kind of shaking, because it was so surreal hearing someone do that. So perfectly done, but it wasn’t a caricature. It was still Timmy, but it’s Bob, and this kind of beautiful meld. That gave me chills.”
Afterward, Fanning said she overheard some of the extras debating whether Chalamet was lip-syncing: “I tapped them on the shoulder and I was like, ‘He is singing. I know he’s singing!’”
For the role in Mangold’s upcoming film about the legendary songwriter and performer, Chalamet committed to staying immersed in Dylan, his co-stars explained.
Prior to filming, Fanning was told it would be likely that Chalamet would “keep to himself” on set and recalled a moment when the actor was referred to as “Bob Dylan” on the call sheet. During pre-production, Fanning said she was invited to meet with Mangold and “Bob,” which made her think she was going to be meeting the real Dylan.
“I was thinking about all these things to say and ask,” Fanning said. “I was picking out my outfit. ‘I’m meeting Bob Dylan today!’” Fanning later realized the meeting was with Chalamet not the actual Dylan.
“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 quipped.
While on set, Chalamet did stay “in his own world in a way that I think Bob often was as well. And it was actually really conducive to the dynamic between Bob and Joan,” his co-star Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez in the film, said. When Chalamet and Barbaro were talking between takes, she recalled Mangold mentioning that Chalamet’s Dylan voice was slipping, which made them realize it was time for “no more talking.”
However, Barbaro emphasized Chalamet’s Method acting “wasn’t so full-on.” She explained, “It wasn’t ‘Don’t look him in the eye’ or anything like that. We said hi, gave each other a hug. I was like, ‘I just saw Dune!’”
Meanwhile, Chalamet’s co-star Edward Norton called the actor “relentless” when trying to stay immersed in the role: “No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing. ‘Nobody comes around us while we’re doing this.’ We’re trying to do the best we can with something that’s so totemic and sacrosanct to many people. And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a fucking audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”
Chalamet credited his former co-stars, including Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, with teaching him how to set a tone on set. “The great actors I’ve worked with, Christian Bale on Hostiles or Oscar Isaac on Dune, were able to do that,” he said, “and guard their process, particularly for something that’s really like a tightrope walk.”
“It was something I would go to sleep panicked about,” he added, “losing a moment of discovery as the character — no matter how pretentious that sounds — because I was on my phone or because of any distraction. I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him. So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus. He deserved that and then more. … God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy. I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”
A Complete Unknown will hit theaters on Dec. 25.
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