AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The new biopic, "A Complete Unknown," is a snapshot of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s from his days playing coffee houses in Greenwich Village...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CORRINA, CORRINA")
BOB DYLAN: (Singing) Corrina, Corrina. Gal, what's on your mind?
CHANG: ...To his controversial show at the Newport Folk Festival, leading a brash, electrified band.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH, IT TAKES A TRAIN TO CRY")
DYLAN: (Singing) And I ride on a mail train, baby, can't buy a thrill.
CHANG: Timothee Chalamet plays Bob Dylan. He looks and talks like Dylan.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A COMPLETE UNKNOWN")
TIMOTHEE CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan) Two hundred people in that room, and each one wants me to be somebody else. They should just let me be.
CHANG: And yeah, he strums and sings like Dylan, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE")
CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan, singing) Once upon a time, you dressed so fine. You threw the bums a dime in your prime. Didn't you?
CHANG: When I spoke to Chalamet and the film's director, James Mangold, I asked if it was hard to write Bob Dylan as a character on the page since he's such a widely mythologized figure. Here's Mangold.
JAMES MANGOLD: You try and throw away this kind of public perception. You know, it's not that it's wrong or right. It's just these words - mystery, enigma, blah, blah, blah. Because the guy's written 55 albums - right? - and toured the world for 60 years, so he's not exactly Howard Hughes. He's given us books, poetry, screenplays, movies, novels, autobiographies, Christmas albums. You name it, he's put it out. And so the first...
CHANG: And yet...
MANGOLD: And yet, we want more.
CHANG: ...Society still regards him as cryptic.
MANGOLD: Yeah.
CHANG: Well, Timothee, I read that you thought you would only have about four months to prepare for this role. But because of COVID, four months stretched into five years. I mean, like, how relieved were you that you got to spend so much more time thinking about Dylan, studying him, imagining being him?
CHALAMET: Well, the relief was in relation to how much I kept learning.
CHANG: Yeah.
CHALAMET: You know, what was initially four months and where I thought I would have the advantage of playing Bob not as a member of the church of Bob in the sense that I wasn't one of these mega fans yet...
CHANG: Yeah. Yeah.
CHALAMET: ...Turned into a five-year process where I feel I've almost turned over every stone available to me now.
CHANG: I mean, just so people understand, you had to learn how to sing like Dylan, talk like Dylan, play guitar like Dylan, play harmonica like him, walk and move like him. What was the hardest?
CHALAMET: I don't know. It was really a process of osmosis. You know, I don't have categories. I don't have a ruler with different sections of stuff that I'm learning. I really try to do it all at once, and...
CHANG: Yeah.
CHALAMET: ...My way in was the music. I love this man's music. These are the songs of life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY")
CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan, singing) Remember me to one who lives there, for she once was a true love of mine.
He's one of the great American artists of our time, so I'm sure some of your listeners could speak to it better than I could. That said, I've, like I said, I've turned over every stone. I did all the work, like you just described, physicality, behavior-wise. But something we haven't really talked about, I also put on 20 pounds because...
CHANG: Oh.
CHALAMET: ...Believe it or not, I was thinner than the guy, you know?
MANGOLD: Thinner than Bob.
CHANG: (Laughter) You had to fatten up to become Bob Dylan. That's hilarious.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY")
TIMOTHEE CHALAMET AND MONICA BARBARO: (As Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing) Please see for me if her hair hangs long, for that's the way I remember her best.
CHANG: Jim, why was it absolutely non-negotiable to you that Timothee and the other actors sing and perform everything, I mean, just as you had Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix do in "Walk The Line"?
MANGOLD: Well, first of all, it wasn't like I had to fight my actors. I think that I was in total league with them. Of course, it's intimidating. But you want an actor to control the performance, and you don't want at any point where musicality is coming out of their mouth or fingers for it to be a kind of, you know, a little earwig in their ear and some playback, let alone the idea that it would be Bob Dylan's real voice coming out of Timmy's mouth, which would be...
CHANG: Would be so weird.
MANGOLD: It would be so weird. Like, in early conversations, when, like, some people in the kind of, you know, executive-y kind of positions and producer positions were nervous, I'd be like, just visualize what you're even talking about.
CHANG: I mean, it's almost more sacrilegious. Yeah.
MANGOLD: Yeah. But what you have to also recognize is we're making a movie about folk music predominantly. And what is folk music if not authenticity, directness, intensity, honesty?
CHANG: Yeah.
MANGOLD: It doesn't take any particular bravery on my part, just common sense, really.
CHANG: I totally get that. But Timothee, I imagine one of the most daunting challenges of portraying someone as well known and as revered as Bob Dylan is that audiences will want, they will expect you to be believable as Bob Dylan. I mean, even Bob Dylan recently posted on X, quote, "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." How did you...
MANGOLD: That's great.
CHANG: ...Decide, Timmy, what version of Bob Dylan you were going to be without offering a caricature of him?
CHALAMET: Well, first of all, I love that post. And I love that post because it's so in Bob's voice. And there was no intellectual decision. Again, I love how Jim put it. This is a movie about folk music and folk musicians. The authenticity needs to be felt. My fear was that you would feel the Purell in a Hollywood reproduction of this period.
CHANG: Sanitizer. Yeah.
CHALAMET: And, yeah, just sort of watered down and crystallized and made sing-songy where it was raw. You know, Bob Dylan had a very bad case of bronchitis in his early 20s that helped make his voice sound the way it is. You hear the iron ore in his voice. You hear the "North Country Blues" when he talks. So I don't want to lose any part of that.
CHANG: I understand you never got a chance to meet Dylan - right? - Timothee...
CHALAMET: No.
CHANG: ...Or talked to him when...
CHALAMET: No, I haven't.
CHANG: ...Preparing for this role. Why not? Like, did you want to and he said, no?
CHALAMET: Yeah, I wanted to. I was careful about the way I reached out and not to be presumptuous. I saw him live. I've seen him live twice. And that was - I don't want to say helpful enough. It would have been great to, but it was super educational just to see his energy observed from a distance, you know?
CHANG: But did he not want to meet with you, or, like, what was that...
CHALAMET: I don't think it's as clear as...
CHANG: ...Or was that a deliberate choice?
CHALAMET: I don't think it's as clear as that. I'll let Jim speak to it or Jeff Rosen, Bob's manager. But my honest feeling is, as Jim said before, we've gotten something like 55 albums from this man. His contribution to the American artistic scene of the last 60 years is monumental. So if I ever did meet him, I would just say thank you. And not thank you for the role, not thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for your work.
CHANG: Well, Jim, you did get to meet Dylan, right? And the way I understand it, you met with him several times to get his take on the script. Is that correct?
MANGOLD: Well, and it came out of happenstance. And three or four times, we spent a half day together alone in a coffee shop during lockdown. I felt from the beginning sitting down with him that he saw in the script and our - and the entire intention of our endeavor was pure.
CHANG: It is sort of interesting to me that Bob Dylan was so cooperative in this project because he does seem like someone who has conflicting feelings about fame, and I would have imagined a biopic being kind of an uncomfortable idea for him, no?
MANGOLD: Yes. I mean, I think Dylan recognized that there was a lack of a kind of agenda to demonize anybody, but just to kind of look straight at everything and let it play.
CHANG: James Mangold co-wrote and directed the new film, "A Complete Unknown." Timothee Chalamet stars in the movie. It's in theaters now. Thank you both so much for sharing this time with me.
MANGOLD: Thank you, Ailsa.
CHALAMET: Thank you. Thanks for the great questions.
MANGOLD: Yeah, it's been a pleasure.
CHALAMET: Thank you so much.
MANGOLD: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE")
CHALAMET: (As Bob Dylan, singing) How does it feel? How does it feel to be on your own? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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