Timothée Chalamet Admitted He Would ‘Go to Sleep Panicked’ While Playing Bob Dylan

This year, Timothée Chalamet will portray Bob Dylan in the film A Complete Unknown. Chalamet spent years preparing for the film and fully immersed himself in the role. He said he worried that any sort of distraction would take away from his careful preparation.

Timothée Chalamet said he experienced stress while playing Bob Dylan 

Chalamet spent five years preparing for his role as Dylan. The part started to seep into his regular life; he brought a guitar to other film shoots and slipped in and out of Dylan’s voice during interviews. He said he worried that any distraction could take him away from his careful preparation.

“It was something I would go to sleep panicked about, losing a moment of discovery as the character — no matter how pretentious that sounds — because I was on my phone or because of any distraction,” he told Rolling Stone. “I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him. So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus.”

He wanted to step away from his life and into Dylan’s.

“He deserved that and then more … God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy,” he said. “I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”

Timothée Chalamet’s co-stars said he tried to stay in character as Bob Dylan on set

Chalamet acted alongside Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez in the film. She said that while he was friendly, they didn’t talk much. Chalamet was trying to stay in character. She recalled a time when they were talking in between takes, and Chalamet started to slip out of his Dylan accent.

“And at that point,” Barbaro said, “I think we both were just like, ‘Nope, no more talking!’”

Edward Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, said he appreciated the way that Chalamet tried to stay in character.

“He was relentless,” Norton said. “No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing. ‘Nobody comes around us while we’re doing this.’ We’re trying to do the best we can with something that’s so totemic and sacrosanct to many people. And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a f***ing audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”

He said one scene was particularly affecting 

In one of the film’s early scenes, Dylan sings to Woody Guthrie in his hospital room. In the scene, Chalamet sings the entirety of the song “Song to Woody.” When he went home for the night, he cried.

“I went home and I wept that night,” Chalamet said. “Not only because ‘Song to Woody’ is this song I’ve been living with forever, and I felt like we brought it to life, but also because I felt like I could take myself out of the equation. The pride I was feeling had no vainglory in it. I just felt, ‘Wow, this is like old-school theater or something.’”

He felt proud of what they were accomplishing with the film.

“We’re, like, bringing life to something that happened, and humbly and bravely going on this journey to hopefully bring it to an audience that otherwise wouldn’t know about it,” Chalamet said. “That felt like an honorable task.”