Timothee Chalamet’s transformation into Bob Dylan in the newly released biopic, A Complete Unknown, has got people talking not only for his uncanny resemblance to the famed singer-songwriter, but also for the vocal similarities between the two and the stellar storytelling as a whole. The film chronicles a young Dylan’s origin story from when he first made waves in New York’s Greenwich Village to a pivotal performance he put on at the Newport Folk Festival. With the film’s release underway, here, take a look at what Timothee Chalamet has said about bringing this iconic public figure to life and what he did to prepare for the role.
Timothee Chalamet nails Dylan’s voice
Getting down the vocals of a famous figure, especially one with a very distinct speaking and singing voice, takes a ton of preparation—just look at Austin Butler. His 2022 performance in Elvis (2022) as the title character was so in-depth that after hours upon hours of vocal training, his voice was permanently altered to resemble that of the famed rocker. Chalamet took a page out of his book when it came to playing Dylan, though perhaps not to such an extreme.
“I’ve basically been working with his entire Elvis team for my Dylan prep,” the actor told GQ back in 2023. “There’s a wonderful dialect coach named Tim Monich. Vocal coach named Eric Vetro. Movement coach named Polly Bennett. I just saw the way he committed to it all—and realized I needed to step it up.”
One of the most fascinating aspects of this film and Chalamet’s performance was that the singing scenes were shot live to camera. Rather than a pre-recorded track that was perfected and sanitized in a studio, there was a moment that clicked for him, his fellow cast members and the crew on the film when they realized singing straight to the camera was the most authentic approach.
He had been working with the vocal coach he worked with on Wonka (2023) when there was the realization that his voice sounded too clean. “Obviously when you’re playing, it does something to your voice, and something had clicked. You know, the pre-records we did in Los Angeles at a studio in Burbank…the worst thing we could have done with a Bob Dylan biopic is sanitize it, make it sound clean,” Chalamet told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “This was a man from iron ore country. You hear the coal country in his voice. So I didn’t wanna be the New Yorker recording in Los Angeles decimating that music. I wanted to honor that legacy.”
The actor credited Edward Norton, who plays Pete Seeger in the film, with giving him the boost of confidence he needed to feel comfortable enough to play live-to-camera.
Capturing Dylan’s body language and musical skill
Chalamet’s transformation was not overnight—as a matter of fact, his performance was really five years in the making. Over those years, he worked with a harmonica coach to nail Dylan’s skill on the instrument and also mastered the guitar—specifically, Dylan’s style of playing.
“Harder than both of those is recording someone with a guitar, in a room by themselves,” said Executive Music Producer Nick Baxter to the Gibson Gazette. “You’d think that would be easy, but you really have to be comfortable with the instrument and with the scene to get anything usable in that environment. It’s incredibly exposed. And there’s really no hiding a guitar; you can’t mime it, you have to play it. It makes noise, you can’t mute it. A piano you can mute, which we do all the time on film sets; you can bang away on it and still get a really nice vocal recording. You can’t do that with a guitar! A ukulele you can mute and even a banjo I’ve actually found ways to mute. But the guitar? You’ve got to string it up and you’ve got to play it.”
As for Dylan’s take on the film, the famed singer recently took to X to share some thoughts: “There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). 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.”
See Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown in theaters now!
