How Timothée Chalamet Became Bob Dylan

Earlier than director James Mangold started manufacturing on his Bob Dylan film, A Full Unknown, the topic of the movie requested him a pointed query. “The primary time I sat down with him,” Mangold says, “Bob stated, ‘What’s this film about, Jim?’ I stated, ‘It’s a couple of man who’s choking to loss of life in Minnesota, and leaves behind all his family and friends and reinvents himself in a model new place, makes new associates, builds a brand new household, turns into phenomenally profitable, begins to choke to loss of life once more — and runs away.” 

Dylan took all of that in, and smiled. “I like that,” he stated.

A Full Unknown doesn’t have an official launch date but, however its first teaser trailer dropped at the moment, and Mangold hints it might come out as quickly as December. The movie’s story begins with Dylan’s arrival in New York in 1961, and ends shortly after his history-making electrical efficiency on the 1965 Newport People Competition. It stars Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Elle Fanning as his girlfriend, Sylvie Russo (whom Mangold confirms is just a renamed model of Dylan’s real-life girlfriend of that period, Suze Rotolo), Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Edward Norton as people legend Pete Seeger. 

In his first in-depth interview about A Full Unknown, Mangold (additionally the director of Stroll The Line, Logan, Ford v Ferrari, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future) tells Rolling Stone concerning the course of behind the movie, Chalamet’s efficiency, and far, rather more. (To listen to an prolonged audio model of this interview, take a look at the brand new episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast —  go right here for the podcast supplier of your selection, hear on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or simply press play under.)

You beforehand stated that it may be higher to explain this film as an ensemble piece as an alternative of a biopic. Is that also the way you’re seeing it, now that you simply’re a lot deeper within the course of?
I didn’t need to flip Bob Dylan right into a easy character with a easy factor to unlock that then makes you go, “Ah, now I get him.” I don’t assume that’s doable, having gotten to know him. I additionally assume it’s fairly clear he spent most of his life making an attempt to keep away from that actual act by anyone. Which is an act of, by nature, discount — lowering somebody to a easy epiphany, a plot-point Freudian historical past of their life.

So then my function as a dramatist turns into, if I’m not going to try this… which in a approach I did do in Stroll the Line. It’s a distinction. Johnny Money is outlined by his upbringing, the lack of his brother, the disgrace he’s carried in life, and an habit that was pushed by the sorrows of his childhood. It traces up very clearly. And his music being about, form of, imprisonment and darkness — it’s all in unimaginable, dramatic concord with these psychological observations about him. None of that will be that simple with Bob.

So after I say it’s a robust ensemble piece, it’s definitely following Bob, however I’m rather more within the wake that this individual has left on others, as a lot as I’m fascinated about unpacking who he’s in some form of typical movie-Freudian approach. That’s why Elle’s character and Pete Seeger, Edward’s character, and Joan Baez, after all, and plenty of others are extra than simply passing by in a form of Corridor of Presidents pageant. They’re important gamers coming out and in of the film. All of them have been instrumental in his journey within the years between ’61 and ’65, however all of them additionally interacted with him in several methods which are prisms and keyholes to totally different points of who Bob may be. 

A very easy instance of what I’m saying: Amadeus is about Mozart and he’s the title character, however in some methods you skilled the film by Salieri and the King and his spouse and others. One of many issues that’s really exhausting to outline and positively I believe exhausting to outline on movie — and one of many nice questions of life — is what’s expertise and the way is somebody born particular. And as an alternative of me making an attempt to reply that query, which I really consider is unanswerable, I believe that we attempt to reply, once we come throughout somebody like that, who’s received some form of inventive tiger by the tail and appears on a form of rocket ship in comparison with us mortals, how does it have an effect on us and our emotions about existence, our personal validity? Jealousy, worship, idolatry, obsession, love, all these items could be the results of this sort of superpower {that a} character can have.

And never solely that, however I believe one of many issues Timmy is so good at taking part in within the film and one thing I believe Bob associated to me, is a real feeling — which is that it’s additionally about, how does one cope with that burden? The way you your self, if in case you have this energy, aren’t even positive precisely the place it’s coming from — you’re making an attempt to guard it and cherish it, however you’re additionally unsure if it is going to elevate you or destroy you. And so there’s an ambivalent relationship for all of the characters with this concept of immense expertise.

Your final film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future, had its personal type of strain, making an attempt to reside as much as that franchise’s historical past. That is one other excessive pressure-movie, and what Timothée is being requested to do isn’t simple. How does all that consider?
Making Stroll the Line, Joaq [Joaquin Phoenix] would come as much as me virtually on daily basis, and he’d go, “Say that factor.” And I’d say, “You’re not Johnny Money.” And he’d go, “Thanks.” There’s generally a notion on the market that what we’re doing is about an ideal replication of a human voice and physicality. We are able to’t do this. Not with human our bodies. Perhaps AI sooner or later can do one thing that meets precisely which snaggletooth that they had or which pockmark was on which cheek. However should you begin happening that street, you lose your self. You’re making an attempt to please anyone, however you lose your self. What it’s a must to be making an attempt to do is to do what films do properly, which is to unpack the emotional dynamic of those folks. And even then, it’s simply my model of it. Which means, I’m not right here to say I’m making the Jon Meacham definitive biography. That isn’t my job. 

So the film begins with Bob’s arrival in New York in January, 1961, and stretches to when?
It actually ends inside 72 hours after the [Newport Folk Festival] live performance in ’65.

Have been these all the time the parameters for you, or have been there totally different stuff you explored within the writing course of?
Once I found the undertaking, Jay Cocks had already written a script primarily based on the guide Going Electrical [by Elijah Wald]. And that guide was very a lot outlined by that piece [of time]. And after I dove into Jay’s script and began to push and pull on it, largely within the space of making an attempt to increase the early a part of the film and the community of characters, I discovered the years from ’61 to ’64 actually attention-grabbing. My attraction turned immediately to this concept of a expertise like Bob, so vexing, so provocative, so stuffed with fiction and truth. This concept of this unimaginable, inventive character touchdown in New York with 12 {dollars} in his pocket — making an attempt to string the needle of how one goes from there to there may be so attention-grabbing to me. And it’s form of fable: that there was this village and in the future this younger man arrived and he goes to fulfill the dying chief of the music he worships, and he meets his second lieutenant, who takes him in and provides this younger man who has expertise an opportunity to sing himself. And instantly this younger man takes off like a rocket, a lot so that every one the folks we meet alongside the best way are instantly remodeled. Films are so easy, actually. The place you get in bother with films is, an excessive amount of story. So what I described to you is the sum in complete. After which letting these great, eccentric characters and these great younger actors all simply do their factor throughout the confines of this.

Is the thought to make use of the actors’ reside performances from the shoot because the music within the film?
It’s not the thought. That’s what we’ve performed! Yeah.

That’s additionally high-stakes. How did you get to a spot the place that was snug?
Each certainly one of these items comes with the truth that you’ll be able to all the time repair it. You need everybody placing every part on the road each second. However it’s not [like] if certainly one of our actors hit a foul notice, I don’t have an alternate take or the flexibility to interchange that one beat. If Timmy’s courageous sufficient to face on the market and make himself weak, throwing himself at this, I must be courageous sufficient to face behind the digicam and shoot. And Timmy was a accomplice on this. He very a lot needed to. And the a number of years of preparation that we had on this film due to false begins with Covid and stuff meant that Timmy actually had a form of incubation as a musician that was years in taking place. And Monica Barbaro as properly. She was solid once we have been gonna make the film earlier than Indy. So quite a lot of these folks have been in place for an unimaginable period of time, and used that point extremely efficiently in their very own musical journey.

What makes Timothée’s efficiency work in your eyes? What did he crack open?
I believe what’s so great about what Timmy is doing is that, whereas not answering questions on Bob, on the similar time I believe he does in a really poetic approach, which is to recommend actually empathically by his efficiency how one may need to make music, however one may not need to have folks in your face on a regular basis. And I believe in a approach, Bob solutions that… Timmy, who I’m used to calling Bob generally, solutions that query. I believe he walks a extremely stunning line of permitting an viewers to see what a pleasure it’s for this character to make music and what pure pleasure he experiences in his camaraderie with different musicians and his exploration of concepts and phrases and music, each making it and listening to others. The place Timmy additionally does one thing actually fairly profound is to point out you his virtually genetically predisposed discomfort with what his personal nice achievements then carry upon him and that, when it comes to folks wanting issues, transactional relationships, or relationships which are tainted by the immense energy and expertise. 

And I believe he does an unimaginable job of rising the character up, as a result of one of many issues I believe that will likely be startling is, most Dylan followers don’t give attention to the boy within the newsboy cap who’s arriving on the town. And Timmy actually carries this character from a 19-year-old boy telling tales of engaged on the carnival into this individual that we acknowledge as an icon. Timmy finds the trail to hold us there. It’s going to be not possible for folks in trailers or teasers or pictures to see, however the best way he grows this character is an actual act of appearing brilliance for my part.

As you stated, exact replication is neither the purpose nor doable. However this is without doubt one of the most imitated voices, each singing and talking, for 50 years. Everybody has a Dylan imitation. Inform me about Timothée’s unveiling of the best way he’s doing it and the way you each dealt with that.
It’s so humorous. You make me give it some thought. I’d by no means considered it. I used to be most likely the one who was speaking like Bob soonest as a result of I used to be spending time with him and making an attempt to recollect — as a result of the syntax of the best way Bob says issues even now could be so significantly Bob, and I used to be actually making an attempt to seize that in what we have been writing. I believe Timmy additionally grows that. Which means that he’s rather less affectedly Bob as we all know him firstly than he’s by the tip, which I believe is an entire closure of the circle. You’re looking for one thing that seems like him, but in addition seems like Timmy, which means that if I have been making an attempt to explain the directorial purpose, you need your actor to play the half, after all, however you don’t need them to lose what’s particular about themselves. Virtually what you need is for the actor to search out the parallel points in them and the individual they’re taking part in. And to get these in concord after which apply the outward affectations that don’t disturb that preliminary form of groove that they discovered with the character from their intestine, if that is smart.

Have been there moments when it was eerie to witness?
Sure, there are. Eerie is a foul phrase. Miraculous. And there have been additionally moments the place it felt like one thing was getting channeled. I don’t imply in mimicry. I imply in feeling. However there have been additionally moments the place Timmy would come as much as me and go, “I believe I misplaced Bob a bit,” or I’d say, when that occurs, “You’re shedding him a bit bit.” And that was our code for drifting an excessive amount of into your self and never carrying a few of these affectations and mannerisms which are half and parcel of being him.

I needed to ask about Sylvie Russo, the half performed by Elle Fanning. To what extent is that merely Dylan’s actual girlfriend from that period, Suze Rotolo, with a special identify, versus half-Suze, half-fictional?
It’s extra the primary. It was a personality who I felt — and I believe Bob very a lot agreed once we talked early on — was the one one who wasn’t a celeb and an icon in and of themselves with a form of public persona. Everybody else is up for the gauntlet and has been in that sport a very long time. And Suze was only a actual individual. And in some ways, Elle performs our entry level or extra regular form of citizen, if you’ll, amongst all these eccentric characters. She’s rather more like somebody we all know. And there was only a feeling for Bob of not subjecting her to that. However definitely the character Elle performs is that power. Somebody who comes into his life, who’s an artist herself, who’s politically lively, who finally ends up transferring in with him and being extremely necessary to his awakening to a few of these points at play. Additionally a form of residence, and a form of purity of affection that they skilled collectively, that in some ways his character can’t ever have with anybody else. As a result of after a pair years, he’s now Bob Dylan, and there’s no approach for anybody to narrate to him the best way somebody who knew him firstly and met him firstly might, like Suze/Sylvie did. There’s no actual decoding to that different than simply not feeling like there was worth in subjecting her actual identify to the identical form of highlight that these different folks within the film, who all lived their total lives within the highlight, skilled.

It feels like Bob was protecting of her reminiscence.
Sure. There isn’t any doubt that’s a extremely necessary individual in his life and stays so. 

Judging from the teaser and the set pictures, it does look like Timothée and Elle gentle up the display screen collectively.
As these two did [in real life]. There will need to have been a purpose they put them on the duvet of Freewheelin‘ collectively. 

Clearly you met with Bob. Did you meet with Joan Baez?
I didn’t. She was despatched pages from the script to approve songs. I had by no means even deliberate on assembly Bob, actually. That simply took place as a result of he learn the script and needed to see me. Initially, when you’ve learn a couple of of those books, you understand there isn’t a method to braid all of them into concord with one another. They’re in one hundred pc contradiction about many issues. So it’s a must to stroll your individual line. I actually restricted issues to huge quantity of analysis and speaking to Mr. Dylan. And there was a lot precise bodily documentation from 1963 on — of live shows, of backstage, of resort rooms, of interviews. The quantity of interviews Bob did was immense. I’ve heard all of them and tried to reap no matter I might for the film from them.

And then you definately had different issues. Jeff Rosen, Bob’s supervisor, made obtainable to me the letters that Johnny Money and Bob wrote to 1 one other on this interval, they usually turned an instrumental voice within the film. While you get these letters and also you’re bodily taking a look at them, you’re wanting on the inside voice of those characters. I don’t want Bob to course of what he wrote, and I don’t want Johnny Money to course of what he wrote. I’ve their emotions from that time limit in 1963 on an airport nausea bag. That’s what Johnny wrote to Bob on and I’m studying the phrases he wrote on it. So that you’re gaining great perception.

Somebody noticed Timothée holding a letter from Johnny Money on set, and it sparked quite a lot of hypothesis. Simply to be clear, is there a Johnny Money character on this film?
Oh sure, there may be.

Who performs him?
Boyd Holbrook.

I believe folks have been in some way hoping this is able to develop into a cinematic-universe, multiverse return–of-Joaquin Phoenix scenario.
I don’t do multiverses. However past that Johnny Money was like, 30.

Precisely.
I really like Joaquin, however he’s not 30, or no matter Johnny was at this second. They’re each younger folks in that second in life. It’s bizarre that I’ve even labored on the planet of IP leisure as a result of I don’t like multi-movie universe-building. I believe it’s the enemy of storytelling. The loss of life of storytelling. It’s extra attention-grabbing to folks the best way the Legos join than the best way the story works in entrance of us.

For me, the purpose turns into, all the time, “What is exclusive about this movie, and these characters?” Not making you concentrate on another film or some Easter egg or one thing else, which is all an mental act, not an emotional act. You need the film to work on an emotional degree.

So it wasn’t a mind-fuck to have Johnny Money again in certainly one of your films.
I believe if you see the film, Boyd is implausible and also you don’t give it some thought for a second. It’s simply, Oh, there’s Johnny Money and he’s in Bob’s life.

What function does Monica’s Joan Baez play on this movie? I’m conscious of the biographical information, however curious the way it works right here.
She’s one of many foremost characters within the film. She is a longtime determine in people music, and when younger Bob arrives, there may be an intense and instantaneous fascination and attraction with one another, but in addition a barely aggressive edge between them. Additionally simply actual admiration. There are sparks each heat and fiery that exist all through the film between them. She turns into one of many actually fascinating characters, somebody who additionally, in contrast to Bob, had grown up virtually on the stage, has a form of consolation and professionalism about making information and live performance appearances that’s diametrically totally different than Bob’s extra seat-of-his-pants method.

Is the purpose to get this film out earlier than the tip of the yr now, and is that an accelerated schedule? And is that arduous?
It’s enjoyable. “Sure” is the reply, and it definitely is enjoyable. It may be simply as scary to work slowly as it’s to work quick. So I embrace it. And like I stated, the film is admittedly taking kind and instructing us what it needs to be. I believe we now have sufficient time to carry that to a touchdown in a stunning approach.

Was there a specific purpose for dashing up the schedule? December is clearly an excellent slot for a film like this.
Yeah, it’s simply merely that, that we might see ourselves making it. Or then having to attend a yr [to release it]. That’s actually what drives it, which you can’t launch a film like this in February or March. After which it’s the summer time and then you definately’d go to some festivals or one thing like that and are available out the next fall. However I really like the inventive momentum of simply charging towards an viewers, headlong.

The Dylan fanatics could be mad if I didn’t ask this: You have got Baez singing with him on the 1965 Newport People Competition, which didn’t truly occur. Is that one thing that worries you in any respect, or do folks simply want to know that that is the best way films work?
It doesn’t fear me as a result of, in a approach, if I deny these skilled people their discoveries, they’d be denied a second of pleasure of their lives find them. Perhaps subsequent time we discuss, I unpack that, as a result of I believe they may have sung collectively in a author’s session — or I used to be making an attempt to encapsulate one thing that occurred the earlier yr that we weren’t capable of arrange there, so does it matter that they sang that music in ’64 after which I’m doing it in ’65? It’s not like I’m ever simply doing one thing out of complete fabric that may be a full contradiction to actuality. Moreso I’m making an attempt to place every part in an order that performs dramatically and is true to the issues that occurred. I’m all the time rather more involved with being true with the sentiments and issues taking place as they did than what date, or whether or not there have been barren timber out the window or inexperienced ones when it occurred. And definitely, to a big diploma, we’re very correct concerning the improvement of the songs and the order that they developed and the studio time and all that stuff, as a lot as we could be.

Somebody joked that since we all know Bob received himself instantly concerned to any extent, we all know the film can’t be that factual.
[Smiles.] I’ll let that be your individual quote.