Bob Dylan Himself Gave Notes for Timothee Chalamet for the Legend's Upcoming 'Biopic'
It's starting to feel like the Bob Dylan biopic (if you can call it) A Complete Unknown is slowly starting to take shape. Filming is set to begin in August, and the script, for the most part, is coming along nicely. That's primarily because of Dylan himself, who is apparently giving director James Mangold some personal notes for Timothee Chalamet.
“I’ve spent several, wonderfully charming, days in his company, just one-on-one, talking to him,” Mangold said of Dylan during a podcast for Indiewire. “I have a script that’s personally annotated by him and treasured by me. He loves movies. The first time I sat down with Bob, one of the first things he said to me was, ‘I love Cop Land’ [Mangold’s 1997 feature].”
Mangold, who recently directed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, did, however, stress that this next film isn't exactly a biopic. The film will only be depicting a few years of the legend's life instead of going for the story of his entire 80-plus-year existence. The director says it's going to be "Altman-esque."
Scenes in Bob Dylan lore like the "Woody" song he wrote for himself and his best friend Pete Seeger will come up. We're also going to be seeing, of course, Joan Baez. Basically, Mangold is going to portray the star's meteoric rise from a small-town Minnesota boy to, er, a rolling stone whose sales rivaled that of The Beatles.
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He added: “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. 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.”
Monica Barbaro has been attached to play the role of Joan Baez while Elle Fanning will play Sylvie Russo and Benedict Cumberbatch as Pete Seeger. Yes, Chalamet is going to be doing his own singing (not that Bob has a golden voice or anything) so that's definitely something to look forward to in his next big act.
