How’s his rendition of “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”?
Our first peek at a highly anticipated new biopic came crashing onto the internet this week, much like a rolling stone.
The upcoming release A Complete Unknown casts Timothée Chalamet as the one and only Bob Dylan. And as was the case with last year’s Wonka, the film puts Chalamet’s singing voice front and center — only this time, he’s emulating one of the most iconic American musicians of all time. How does he fare? Well, you’ll get to hear his rendition of the classic track “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” in the full teaser, which you can watch below:
Portraying someone as beloved as Dylan is no easy feat, but it looks like Chalamet is up to the task. His singing voice is remarkably similar to Dylan’s signature sound — and considering Chalamet became the youngest person to be nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars since the 1940s, with his 2018 nod for Call Me By Your Name, it’s safe to say he’s got the chops to pull off a difficult performance. (And if the movie is truly great, he might add another nomination to his résumé — Cate Blanchett was up for Best Supporting Actress for her own portrayal of Dylan in 2007’s I’m Not There.)
What other famous faces will we see in A Complete Unknown? The star-studded cast is playing an equally star-studded list of musical characters, including Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, and Elle Fanning as a renamed version of Suze Rotolo, the artist who dated Dylan in the 1960s and appeared with him on the album cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963.
The film is directed by James Mangold, who previously helmed another high-profile musical biopic: 2005’s Walk the Line, which chronicled the lives of Johnny Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash (a role that won Reese Witherspoon the Oscar for Best Actress).
A Complete Unknown doesn’t have an official release date yet, but word is that it’s slated for this December, which would be prime time for awards consideration. If you want to dive even deeper into what we know about the movie, Rolling Stone has an in-depth conversation with Mangold that’ll tide you over until we find out for sure when it’s headed our way.
