Timothée Chalamet wouldn’t let friends, visitors, or reps see him when he was playing Bob Dylan for A Complete Unknown, says Edward Norton.
Chalamet stars as Dylan in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, which releases in United States theaters next month. Based on the 2015 novel Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald, the movie also stars Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie, and more.
What did Edward Norton say about Timothée Chalamet and A Complete Unknown?
Speaking with Rolling Stone, Norton detailed how Chalemet closed himself off from the world while filming scenes for the forthcoming musical biopic.
“He was relentless,” said Norton. “No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing. Nobody comes around us while we’re doing this. We’re trying to do the best we can with something that’s so totemic and sacrosanct to many people. And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a f—ing audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”
Barbaro also said she noticed Chalamet stayed “in his own world in a way that I think Bob often was as well” while on set. She added, “And it was actually really conducive to the dynamic between Bob and Joan.”
A Complete Unknown will be released in United States theaters on December 25, 2024, from Searchlight Pictures.
The synopsis for the movie reads, “Set in the influential New York music scene of the early 60s, A Complete Unknown follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s (Timothée Chalamet) meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts – his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation – culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.”
