How Timothee Chalamet became obsessed with Bob Dylan & even changed how he shaved in epic film that should win him Oscar

BEFORE Dune, before Wonka, before he met girlfriend Kylie Jenner, Timothée Chalamet signed up for his most challenging role . . . 

 . . . to play a young Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown.

“Once I was in it, there was no coming back,” Chalamet affirmed in the film’s production notes. “I was fully in the Church of Bob.”

Last night, the 29-year-old box-office sensation, dressed in a smart dark navy suit, attended the UK premiere at London’s BFI Southbank — but without his high-profile, super-glam partner Jenner.

Also on the red carpet were director James Mangold, who cut his biopic teeth on Johnny Cash flick Walk The Line, Elle Fanning, who portrays Dylan’s passionately political girlfriend, and Edward Norton, who is convincing as straitlaced folkie Pete Seeger.

The event marked the culmin-ation of a six-year journey for the film’s principal star that could and SHOULD land him his first Oscar.

Back in 2019, Chalamet, then 23, jumped at the role but production was stalled first by the pandemic and then the Screenwriters Guild of America strike.

Immortal chorus

But this meant he could fully immerse himself in the intriguing story of how a baby-faced, 19-year-old Dylan left his home state of Minnesota in 1961 and pitched up in New York City with five dollars in his pocket and an acoustic guitar in his hand.

The film charts Bob’s rapid rise to becoming “the voice of a generation” with protest anthems such as Blowin’ In The Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Masters Of War.

It climaxes with the moment he controversially turns his back on the scene at 1965’s Newport Folk Festival by “going electric” and performing the abstract song which gives the biopic its name.

“How does it feel, how does it feel? To be without a home. Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?” goes the immortal chorus which helped change the face of popular music.

It’s clear from watching tousle-haired Chalamet that he went all in — that he obsessively studied Dylan’s work, mannerisms and storied history.

He could never exactly mimic the singular, enigmatic Bob — and didn’t try to ­ — but he certainly captures the feel of his subject.

Just the way he sings the classic songs with such conviction or hun-ches his shoulders over his acoustic guitar with awkward intensity or glances heavenwards to avoid eye contact with his audiences.

He certainly looks the part, too, even down to inconsistent shaving, sometimes dirty fingernails and dark shadows under his eyes.

It is a remarkable achievement for an actor who grew up listening to rapper Kid Cudi, who had to Google Dylan when first approached for the part.

The singer himself, known to his devoted fans as “His Bobness”, gave “Timmy” his blessing just before the movie opened in the States to rave reviews.

“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,” he wrote in a rare personal post on X.

Less believable is Chalamet’s relationship with a member of the Kardashian clan.

Their liaison started after they first met at a Jean Paul Gaultier show during Paris Fashion Week in January 2023 — and it seems to be upsetting his devoted fans, the “Chalamanics”.

He’s the hip New Yorker with arty parents — an American mother who was once a Broadway dancer and a French journalist father who works for UNICEF and is Le Parisien’s NYC correspondent.

Chalamet grew up in a bohemian, subsidised artists’ building, Manhattan Plaza, getting acting roles as a child long before he became the darling of Hollywood.

He’s already the deserved recipient of an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (Call Me By Your Name, 2017), four Golden Globe and three Bafta nods. Now many believe an Oscar is within Chalamet’s grasp for A Complete Unknown.

Kylie, 27, is from America’s flashiest family, first appearing in reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians when she was ten.

Her parents are Kris and Caitlyn Jenner, her older sister is Kendall and Kim, Kourtney and Khloe are among her eight half-siblings.

The mother of two children with rapper Travis Scott, she also runs the wildly successful Kylie Cosmetics, which turned her into a billionaire.

Kylie’s known for being quite shy — certainly one of her family’s least out-spoken members — and for transforming her appearance, most notably with enhanced, voluminous lips.

Guitar lessons

But as the “Kylothee” relationship hits two years, it appears to be going strong — certainly if the intimate but very public kiss at the Golden Globes was anything to go by.

Maybe they bonded over the shared experience of being in the glare of publicity since they were kids.

With both in huge demand, only time will tell if they can endure the stresses and strains.

For Chalamet, films such as the two Dune instalments and Wonka have put him in the top tier of box office draws.

But I suspect his role as America’s greatest songwriter has given him the greatest satisfaction — and a life-changing experience.

You could say “Timmy plays Zimmy” because, of course, Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman 83 years ago and even referred to himself as Zimmy in his song Gotta Serve Somebody.

It’s worth noting that it was the singer’s people, led by his long-serving manager Jeff Rosen, who got the ball rolling after optioning the film rights to Elijah Wald’s illuminating 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, And The Night That Split The Sixties.

They secured the services of director Mangold, recipient of huge cred for the way he handled the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line.

Bearing in mind that Cash and Dylan were enduring friends and mutual admirers, he was the obvious choice.

And Mangold only had one person in mind to play Bob — Timothée Chalamet.

He told me: “For as long as there have been movies, casting is the most critical decision you make.

“Choosing Timmy was pre-Dune, pre-Wonka so it certainly wasn’t about box office. It was about what an incredible talent he is.

“Then I watched his ascension or transformation into this character we know as Bob Dylan.”

That said, Mangold stressed in the film’s official notes: “I didn’t want Timmy to disappear. It’s a perform-ance. I wanted Timmy to bring who he is to Bob.”

One of the most striking aspects of Chalamet’s performance is that he tackles so many songs, ballads like Girl From The North Country, performed as a duet with Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, as well as searing, plugged-in rock songs such as Like A Rolling Stone and Maggie’s Farm.

Production mixer Tod A. Maitland recalled the first performance in front of an audience, capturing Dylan’s historic show at NY’s Carnegie Hall.

“Up until five minutes before we were going to shoot that scene, we were going to use playback,” Maitland said.

“Timmy comes out and he says, ‘I’m going live’. And then there was a big discussion and Timmy said, ‘Look, I’ve worked five years for this part. I’ve been working on my guitar. I’ve been working on everything. I am not going to use playback’.”

To do the role justice, Chalamet took lessons in singing, guitar and even the harmonica.

That deep commitment was witnessed by co-star Edward Norton, who said Chalamet refused to have friends or visitors on set, was referred to as “Bob” and listed as “Bob Dylan” on the call sheet.

We also know that Chalamet devoured Dylan’s vast back catalogue, including bootlegs, rarities and YouTube videos.

And it’s said that the beguiling Percy’s Song, an out-take from 1964’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ album, is one of his favourites.

The actor also took the trouble to visit Bob’s humble childhood home, now a museum, in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the corner of a street which has been renamed Bob Dylan Drive.

Chalamet was at pains to point out: “We didn’t want to draw conjecture that would have demystified the way life was for Bob in Minnesota.

“That’s why I love the title of the movie, A Complete Unknown. Some stuff is left to the imagination, because Bob’s ethos as an artist is the myth of self-creation.”

In his post on X, Dylan agreed by exclaiming: “What a title!”

One of the film’s most moving scenes comes early on when the Dylan character pitches up at the bedside of his hero — dustbowl balladeer Woody Guthrie, who wrote a kind of unofficial American national anthem, This Land Is Your Land. “Woody’s the the dying god you meet at the beginning of the film,” said Chalamet.

In the scene, Guthrie, played sensitively by Scoot McNairy, can barely speak as he battles Hunting-ton’s disease while the young Dylan performs one of the first songs he ever wrote himself, a heartfelt tribute called Song To Woody.

Central to the film are two women Dylan had relationships with — Barbaro as established star Baez and Elle Fanning, who gives a well-judged performance as his first serious girlfriend.

The moment they split up, with the pair on either side of a wire fence, is genuinely heart-wrenching.

In the film, she’s called Sylvie Russo, changed at Dylan’s personal request to protect the memory of the late Suze Rotolo who was famously pictured with him on his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

“I was so grateful, because Elle is someone I’ve known for a long time,” said Chalamet, who previously starred in rom-com A Rainy Day In New York with her.

“The benefit you have with an actor or actress you’ve worked with in the past is that there is already a relationship, and that was good for Bob and Sylvie.

“They have this intimacy that first loves can have, where they feel like they’ve known each other a long time.”

At a special screening in London with the cast last month, attended by Fanning and Barbaro, I was struck first by Chalamet’s slight frame, very like the young Dylan’s, and by how eloquently he talked.

He recalled seeing Dylan’s notorious 1965 San Francisco press conference and clocking what a confrontational “wise-ass” he could be.

Chalamet mused that he was the epitome of politeness when his own career took off but at least, in Dylan, he discovered someone who spoke to his soul.

Maybe, he also gained a little understanding of how it felt to be Bob Dylan in the Sixties but, for as long as he lives, Timothée Chalamet will never be A Complete Unknown.