He’s lean and lanky. He has lots of hair. He’s mysterious, but also a bit whimsical. Ladies love him. We're referring, of course, to Timothée Chalamet—but all these things were also true of the young Bob Dylan when he was an unknown folk singer bumming around New York. The two have now come together in A Complete Unknown, a new Dylan biopic in which the former Paul Atreides takes the lead. Directed by James Mangold, who also molded Joaquin Phoenix into Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, the film focuses on Dylan’s early years, including his controversial choice to swap folk for rock when he “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
A Complete Unknown opens in December—prime Oscars territory—and the first trailer dropped this week. Chalamet looks the part, and sounds the part too: his delivery of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” has that sharp nasal quality that we know and love (well, not always love) from the musician. Last year, Chalamet told British GQ that he scooped up Austin Butler’s “entire Elvis team” to help him nail the voice and mannerisms of the singular songwriter.
But what do the toughest judges of all—those who have dedicated their careers to channelling Dylan—think about the efforts of this upstart young actor? GQ spoke to Bob Dylan impersonators and tribute acts to get their take on Chalamet’s performance.
John O’Connell, from Liverpool, England, who started the tribute act Simply Dylan 12 years ago
Did you rate Chalamet’s Dylan?
His voice sounds great. He looks good. And the guitar is really good; he’s got that lovely downstroke that Dylan uses. I recently learned [the Dylan song] “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” and I thought it was so simplistic, so I put an up-and-down strum in it. But it just wasn’t working. And then when I went back to Dylan doing it, it was just downstrokes—jhong, jhong, jhong, jhong, jhong, jhong, jhong—and it just worked and set the voice free. That song in the trailer, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall," he does that downstroke, and it’s so good. They’ve got that guitar sound spot on.
Do you think it’s important for Chalamet to look and sound as much like Dylan as possible?
I’ve seen a few Dylan tribute bands, and I personally don’t like the mimicking of his voice from a band. But I think in this case it’s got to sound like Dylan, and there’s got to be a resemblance, [for] people who want to find out about Dylan. I could tell [his voice] wasn’t Dylan, but he’s got a lovely clear tone. I think he’s done a fantastic job.
Are you excited to see the film? Any parts of it particularly?
For me, it’s a story that’s long overdue and needs to be told. There’s just so much to it. I’m looking forward to the relationships he has with [folk singers] Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. It’d be nice if there was another movie to go on from [Dylan’s early career] into the 70s, and then into his religious period. But as long as the guitar sounds the way it does [and] the voice sounds the way it does, I think they’ve got it dead right.
Scott Dineen, frontman for nearly three years of The Bob Band, based in Washington DC
Did you think Chalamet would work as Dylan when it was announced?
Like a lot of people I was skeptical; you know, ‘Timothée Chalamet, are you kidding?’ You need to completely internalize the music, all the voice lessons, all the rehearsals, all of that – we’re not kidding around. We really work hard at this. So I was really curious to see how an actor was going to pull this off, given that I’ve been living this role. But when I heard him sing in that Wonka movie I knew he was a good singer.
What did you make of his performance?
He’s a good choice in terms of his age, his physicality. There was a sweetness to his voice that was very un-Dylan-like, but still pleasant. He was a little cleaner—even his clothes were cleaner than you see in the actual pictures of Dylan. So that was a little bit inauthentic. But I don’t think it bothered me. I think if they were trying too hard to do an imitation that would have bothered me more.
What about the little details?
His phrasing was a little too on-the-nose, actually, and maybe did tend a little toward parody. It’s energy more than anything else that defines how I try to embody Dylan. I didn’t see enough of that in the trailer. [And] Dylan held his guitar in a very particular way—completely horizontally, even with a bigger guitar. I don’t think Chalamet did that.
Which parts of the film are you most looking forward to?
I’m interested to see his transformation into a celebrity. And they hinted at that—there’s a few seconds of him being rushed into the car and wearing the Ray Ban glasses, which to me signaled the transformation. There were enough little clues that gave me goosebumps about [how] the transformation is going to be an important part of the movie. I can’t wait to see [it]; there’s a lot of buzz that I’m hearing. I have a friend in Paris who’s the president of the Bob Dylan fan club, and I respect her a lot. And she was like, ‘Wow, this is way better than I thought.’
Don Puglisi, based in Detroit, who has performed his tribute act Don Dylan for the last five years
What did you think of Chalamet’s performance in the trailer?
I thought it was good. And what I thought was good about it was he split the difference between the caricature of [puts on an extremely Bob Dylan voice] hyuuh—he split the difference where you really hear the performance and didn’t hear the caricature. I kind of wish Chalamet looked a little more like him, telling you the truth.
Any particular Dylan songs you’re keen to hear in the film?
“Masters of War” would be a great one; “With God On Our Side”, which I think is really my favorite song of his and a lot of people don’t know. “Visions of Johanna” would be amazing. [And] I want to see him and Joan Baez, [folk singer and Dylan’s on-off girlfriend]. I’m really looking forward to that drama.
Bill Lennon, who’s performed his act The Bob Dylan Story since 2016, and made a cameo as Dylan in a Deep Purple music video
What did you think of the trailer?
I think the song they’ve chosen is a really interesting one. [“A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”] is obviously a folk song, and his voice is therefore quite exposed, because it’s just him and the guitar. And I think it sounds really, really good. At that time, Dylan was quite unschooled on the guitar [and] sounded quite raw. And he captures that really well. I can’t wait to hear some of the other stuff. It would be interesting to see how he handles a song like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”, because that’s got some quite fast fingerpicking in it.
Do you think there’s a good physical resemblance?
Especially when he’s got the shades on, it’s almost uncanny. I really like the way that when the camera pans to his profile when he’s singing, he’s got that intensity but [also the] boyish shyness of Dylan at that time.
How do you approach Dylan’s one-of-a-kind voice?
You’ve got to be a bit careful, because if you go for it too much, you can end up sounding like a parody. When I first started, I probably tried too hard. Now I’m more into getting the phrasing right, because Dylan has got a really unique way of phrasing his lyrics—it’s very conversational. Once you’ve got the phrasing, every now and again you can throw in a nod to that nasal twang.
Did Chalamet handle it well?
I don’t think anyone is ever going to sound exactly like Bob Dylan. With him, I think if I were to shut my eyes and listen, I would know that it wasn’t Dylan. But it’s certainly one of the better impressions I’ve heard over the years, if not the best. It’s about as close as you’re gonna get.