Timothée Chalamet almost always keeps his cool, but even he couldn’t contain his reaction when he found out Bob Dylan had nice things to say about his upcoming musical biopic, A Complete Unknown.
The film chronicles the early years of Dylan’s grassroots folk career, his love life, and his eventual stratospheric rise. Chalamet sings in the film, giving his best impression of Dylan’s rugged and endearing chords. A scary prospect, but less so now that the musical legend has given his seal of approval.
Responding to a kind X post, Timmy humbly responded, gratefully accepting Dylan’s high praise. It’s giving ballroom decorum, proper posture, and polite rules of engagement — perhaps because he know his blue tick would ensure Dylan would see it in his notifications.
The story was different on Chalamet’s unhinged Instagram story, where he used the “pooping, screaming, crying,” meme format to show just how moved he was by Dylan’s supportive remarks. After the repeated screaming, crying, pooping, and laughing, he wrote “Thank you, Bob! Dream come true!”
We can’t blame the Dune star for freaking out. Music biopics have fallen out of favor with audiences over the last few years, so Dylan shouting out the movie will have positive ripple effects for its chances at the box office. It’s nice to know the film has the backing of its subject, especially since biopics have a habit of being ethically muddy at best.
A Complete Unknown co-stars Elle Fanning and is set in New York’s influential 1960s music scene. The story focuses on 19-year-old Dylan, whose meteoric rise was unlike any other musician out of Minnesota. While he climbs the ranks through concert halls to stadiums, the pressure of being a sensation causes some personal trouble.
Standard biopic stuff, but director James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) has made sure to use Dylan’s input as much as possible. He told MOJO the direct involvement was due to a lucky break in Dylan’s “Never Ending” tour caused by COVID-19. Mangold said, “he asked to read the script, and that was the start of our connection. He liked what I was doing and saw that I didn’t have some kind of agenda.”
“When I first met Bob,” Mangold recalled, “one of the first things he said to me is, ‘What’s this movie about?’ And I said, It’s about a guy who’s choking to death in Minnesota, who runs away to the big city, leaving behind all his friends and all he knew, reinvents himself, makes new friends, makes a new community, takes it over, and then starts to choke to death, and leaves. And Bob smiled at that. Because I feel like that is the story. And that intrigued me because I knew I could make a movie about that.”
The movie opens on Dec. 25, 2024, in the U.S., and the ensemble cast includes Ed Norton, Monica Barbaro, and Nick Offerman. While Dylan has made his stance clear, we’ll have to wait and see if A Complete Unknown can break the music biopic fatigue. One thing’s for sure, Chalamet is just happy to be here.