Elle Fanning Admitted She Was ‘Let Down’ She Had to Rehearse With Timothée Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’ 

This December, Elle Fanning and Timothée Chalamet will star in A Complete Unknown, a film that follows Bob Dylan from his arrival in New York to his decision to go electric. Fanning and Chalamet have acted alongside each other before, and they had a close relationship on set. Still, she admitted that seeing him at one rehearsal came as a major disappointment. She shared why she felt this way.

Elle Fanning shared why seeing Timothée Chalamet at rehearsal was disappointing

While Chalamet wasn’t very familiar with Dylan before he took on the role, Fanning had been a fan for years.

“I wrote ‘Bob Dylan’ on my hand every day in middle school,” she told Rolling Stone, adding, “It’s like I manifested this part.”

During preproduction, Fanning’s assistant informed her that she had a rehearsal scheduled with Dylan himself. Fanning could hardly believe it.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’” she said. “I was thinking about all these things to say and ask. I was picking out my outfit. ‘I’m meeting Bob Dylan today!’”

When she arrived at the rehearsal, however, she found director James Mangold and Chalamet. As it turned out, Mangold listed Chalamet as “Bob Dylan” on the call sheet for the sake of immersion. Fanning couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

“I’m probably the first person in life to be let down by having a rehearsal with Timothée Chalamet, right?” she said. “Like, the first girl in history.”

Monica Barbaro also played a love interest of Dylan’s in the film

Fanning’s character, Sylvie Russo, has a relationship with Dylan in the film. Monica Barbaro plays Joan Baez, who also had a romantic relationship with the songwriter. While Chalamet and Fanning were close on set, Barbaro said he kept her at a distance. This was in the interest of building realistic relationships between their characters.

“I had a lot of friends who were like, ‘Have you met him yet? Have you met him?’” Barbaro said. “But it just felt like the right thing to wait and just meet in the context of these characters … the way she saw Bob.”

Barbaro said Chalamet wasn’t completely Method on set, though.

“It wasn’t so full-on,” she said. “It wasn’t ‘Don’t look him in the eye’ or anything like that. We said hi, gave each other a hug. I was like, ‘I just saw Dune!’”

Elle Fanning said Timothée Chalamet’s voice gave her chills

Fanning said she was moved to tears when she first heard Chalamet sing in his Dylan voice.

“We were in an auditorium, and I was sitting amongst all these background artists,” she said. “Jim would let Timmy come out and give the crowd a whole concert. He was singing ‘Masters of War’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ and I was like, ‘Jesus.’”

She said his interpretation of the voice had a powerful impact on everyone in the room.

“All of us were kind of shaking, because it was so surreal hearing someone do that. So perfectly done, but it wasn’t a caricature. It was still Timmy, but it’s Bob, and this kind of beautiful meld. That gave me chills.”

Afterward, Fanning overheard extras wondering if Chalamet was lip-syncing. He sang live in the film, though.

“I tapped them on the shoulder and I was like, ‘He is singing. I know he’s singing!’”