Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan Battles Fame

Timothée Chalamet as legendary songwriter and performer Bob Dylan discovers the cost of celebrity fame in the official trailer for James Mangold’s biopic A Complete Unknown.

Part of that price is having to meet audience expectations in the 1960s music world that came between the artist, his songs and his fans, Chalamet as Dylan complains in the preview. “They just want me to be singing ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ for the rest of my goddamn life,” Dylan says at one point in the latest look at the Searchlight film.

Having arrived as an enigmatic 19-year-old from Minnesota in the West Village with his guitar and revolutionary talent, Dylan attempts to change the course of American music but grows restless with having to be defined as his success builds. “If anyone’s gonna hold your attention on a stage, you have to kind of be a freak,” Dylan observes as the mystique of his songs and on-stage persona culminates with a fan-defying electric guitar performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, as touched on in the trailer.

There’s also a look at the uneasy partnership between Dylan and Joan Baez, played by Monica Barbaro, as they rise from a singing duo to performing in concert halls and then hitting the top of the charts as the king and queen of folk music.

Chalamet does his own singing for the movie role after earlier musical work including his onscreen performance in Wonka.

A Complete Unknown will hit theaters on Dec. 25 and also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman, P.J. Byrne as Harold Leventhal, Norbert Leo Butz as Alan Lomax, Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth and Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie.

The film is produced by Fred Berger, Alex Heineman, Peter Jaysen,  Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer, Jeff Rosen, Chalamet and Mangold, who directed the biopic based on a script he co-wrote with Jay Cocks.