Coming to theaters this December, Timothée Chalamet (Dune, Lady Bird) takes on the role of rising artist Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, a new film by James Mangold, along with co-stars Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Nick Offerman, and more.
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The upcoming flick, set in New York City’s music scene of the early ‘60s, is based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric, and introduces young folk musician Bob Dylan to audiences by telling the story from his roots in Minnesota through his rise to the top of the charts, finally leading up to his electrifying and groundbreaking performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
In the film's first trailer, we see Chalamet when he first arrives in New York City in 1961, passing some of the singer's favorite NYC haunts including the Hotel Chelsea and Cafe Wha?, while singing his 1963 protest song “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” Alongside Chalamet as Dylan, the film also features a number of other real-life character portrayals, including Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, and Nick Offerman as ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax.
“I’ve spent several, wonderfully charming, days in his company, just one-on-one, talking to him,” Mangold said of Dylan’s collaborative effort on the film. “I have a script that’s personally annotated by him and treasured by me.”
Mangold explains, "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.” As the story goes, Mangold continues, “he sings Woody a song that he wrote for him and befriends Pete Seeger, who is like a son to Woody, and Pete sets him up with gigs at local clubs and there you meet Joan Baez and all these other people who are part of this world, and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life, becomes a star, signs to the biggest record company in the world within a year, and three years later, has record sales rivaling The Beatles.”
“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," says Mangold.
A Complete Unknown is set for release in December 2024. Take a look at the first trailer above.