Timothée Chalamet channelled Bob Dylan in another way at the A Complete Unknown premiere.
Not only did the Call Me By Your Name star learn to play 30 songs in preparation for his role in the Dylan biopic – as well as taking lessons with a vocal coach, a guitar teacher, a dialect coach, a movement coach and even a harmonica tutor – but he upped the ante by embodying The Bard on the carpet.
Last night (December 13), the actor appeared at the New York City event and recalled a look of Dylan’s from decades prior, when he appeared at the Sundance Film Festival premiere of his film Masked and Anonymous in 2003.
Chalamet got the look down to a fine science, including the facial hair, blonde locks, leather jacket and grey scarf, which fans are seemingly divided over.
While some said the tribute was “everything” and joked about a “male version of The Substance“, others argued it was a move right out of the Barbie press tour playbook, and didn’t gel with a biopic about Dylan.
Check out more reactions below:
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET REFERENCING TO THIS BOB DYLAN LOOK IS EVERYTHING pic.twitter.com/2IROrCQ9ks
— َ (@chlmtslut) December 14, 2024
HE DID IT pic.twitter.com/2jhewBsXr4
— L (@timtomposting) December 14, 2024
I thought this was like really good photoshop for a second I can’t believe this is real
— peter lane (@peterlanee) December 14, 2024
I didn’t know there was a male version of #TheSubstance
— Tonton Alberto 🕺🏻 (@RostatAlberto) December 14, 2024
Barbie has really ruined press tours in terms of on-the-nose method dressing.
— michael (@michelevs92) December 14, 2024
This worked for Barbie! This doesn’t work for A Complete Unknown!
Studios really don’t know when to read a room.— Dolly Madison ✌🏻🌻 🟦 (@dollymad1812) December 14, 2024
Dylan recently praised Chalamet’s efforts and said “Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”
He continued: “The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book.”
Chalamet has since responded to the praise while quote-tweeting Dylan’s post. “Floored,” he wrote. “I am so grateful. Thank you Bob.”
In NME’s four-star review of the film, Alex Flood wrote: “The most important (and often trickiest) job of any music movie is to get the music right. And this nails that. If you’re a Bob newbie, you’ll leave the cinema ready to dive into his back catalogue.
“If you’re already a fan, the next few weeks will be spent making playlists of lesser-known B-sides or reading the lore around a scene you weren’t familiar with. And that’s why it was a good idea to make this film – a mad idea, but a good one.”