Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob Dylan in the first teaser trailer for A Complete Unknown, the upcoming film/biopic chronicling the legendary musician’s arrival to New York City in 1961 and the years of stardom that followed. In the teaser, Chalamet sings Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.”
Alongside Chalamet as Dylan, the film stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, and Nick Offerman as Alan Lomax. James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) directed the film.
Dylan himself reportedly gave Mangold notes for the script. “I’ve spent several, wonderfully charming, days in his company, just one-on-one, talking to him,” Mangold said of Dylan. “I have a script that’s personally annotated by him and treasured by me.”
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“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,” Mangold added. “In this case, it might sound 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.”
A Complete Unknown is set for release in December 2024 through Searchlight Pictures.
Meanwhile, the real Bob Dylan is still alive and well. In fact, this summer he’ll join Willie Nelson on the “Outlaw Music Festival Tour.” Get tickets to Dylan’s upcoming tour dates here.
