Hes traveling through the north country today.
Eighty miles from Canada, where the winds, its been said, hit heavy on the borderline.
Hes layered a down jacket over a gray sweatshirt, the hood yanked over his mussed brown hair.
To its left is a newish street sign:Bob DylanDrive.
ButTimothee Chalametis on a mission, and this pilgrimage is one of his final quests.
At one point, he wrote out Dylan lyrics on sheets of paper and taped them to his walls.
Youcantre-create it in the studio, he argues later.
Chalamet grew up worshiping Kid Cudi, with dead-on-arrival aspirations of rapping in his own right.
And even as he shot other movies, Chalamet never quite left Bob Land.
A white-haired 82-year-old named Bill Pagel emerges from the house to greet Chalamet.
Pagel, a retired pharmacist and perhaps the worlds leading Bob Dylan collector, bought the place in 2019.
Even the Steinway piano he bashed away on is still there.
At the end of the path is a drawing of Guthrie.
The upstart took out his guitar, and sang for his hero.
Its not eclectic enough!
You should bebleedingabout Bob Dylan!
That said, its hard to overstate the challenge the filmmakers faced.
On top of that, he had to manifest much of that performance musically.
Its really just an act of admiration and love, Mangold says, pondering Dylans journey.
This young man shows up.
I mean, it couldnt be less complicated.
But that connection is fragile.
Youre connected to destiny.
Timothee Chalamet doesnt look anything like Bob Dylan right now.
The stubbly mustache and goatee hes grown knock off another 10 percent.
This feels like home, he says.
Nevertheless, Chalamet is palpably relaxed as he strides along, hands in pockets.
This is the kind of pressure Iwantin my life, he says.
This is the kind of pressure I love.
Then he plays Song to Woody, one of Dylans first great songs, start to finish.
His performance, says Norton, is off-the-charts great.
I went home and I wept that night, says Chalamet.
The pride I was feeling had no vainglory in it.
I just felt, Wow, this is like old-school theater or something.
That felt like an honorable task.
He first encounteredA Complete Unknown,originally titledGoing Electricand based on Elijah Walds 2015 book,Dylan Goes Electric!
Initially, Chalamet simply liked Dylans look.
On a quick Google, there was something behind the eyes, you know?
Chalamet quickly mapped that scenario onto his own experience.
And that immediately hit a bone with me.
He auditioned for action franchises, movies likeMaze RunnerandDivergent,and failed every time.
I would always get the same feedback, he says, with real pain.
Oh, you dont have the right body.
I had an agent call me once and say, Im tired of getting the same feedback.
Were gonna stop submitting you for these bigger projects, because youre not putting on weight.
I wastryingto put on weight.
My metabolism or whatever the fuck couldnt do it.
I was knocking on one door that wouldnt open, he says.
His earlier roles, he says, were so personal and vulnerable.
Theres an intimacy to that work that I hear in Bobs early music, in his early folk songs.
He pauses, and seizes the metaphor.
And then eventually you want to use different instruments.
Unlike Cash or, say, Dewey Cox, hes unburdened by his past, doesnt look back.
Dylan has never once had to think about his entire life before he plays, and neither has Chalamet.
I related to the feeling that my talent could be my talent, he says.
I could draw the picture of an unconventional upbringing.
I grew up in arts housing, Manhattan Plaza, which is a funky way to grow up.
I could attempt to paint it negatively to you.
I could take a stab at paint it positively, but its a bit of everything.
His point is that it doesnt matter.
I dont need to point to some thing in my youth.
Your talent is your talent.
The thing you gotta say is the thing you gotta say.
You dont need the Big Bang.
I was like, Oh, my God!
she says via Zoom, her blue eyes sparkling.
I was thinking about all these things to say and ask.
I was picking out my outfit.
Im meeting Bob Dylan today!
I went home and I wept that night.
This was a song Id been living with forever, and we brought it to life.
But Fanning, 26, was way ahead of them.
Next to him was Timothee Chalamet.
Like, the first girl in history.
Jim has an annotated Bob script lying around somewhere, Chalamet says.
Ill beg him to get my hands on it.
Hell never give it to me.
I felt like Bob just wanted to know what I was up to, Mangold says.
Who is this guy?
Is he a shithead?
Does he get it?
I think the normal questions anyone asks when theyre throwing themselves in league with someone.
She was obviously someone that was very special and sacred to Bob.
It was something like, Dont even bother coming back, Fanning says.
Maybe you just dont come back at all.)
Timmy cried watching the movie, Fanning says.
I was like, Youcried?
All right, softie!
Fanning herself teared up involuntarily the first time she heard Chalamet sing on set.
We were in an auditorium, and I was sitting amongst all these background artists, she recalls.
Jim would let Timmy come out and give the crowd a whole concert.
All of us were kind of shaking, because it was so surreal hearing someone do that.
So perfectly done, but it wasnt a caricature.
It was still Timmy, but its Bob, and this kind of beautiful meld.
That gave me chills.
Afterward, she heard some of the extras debating whether Chalamet was lip-synching.
I tapped them on the shoulder and I was like, He is singing.
Before the shoot, Fanning was warned that Chalamet would keep to himself on set, except with her.
When she did, he was already dressed in Dylans clothes.
I had a lot of friends, Barbaro says, who were like, Have you met him yet?
Have you met him?
It wasnt so full-on, she says, laughing.
It wasnt Dont look him in the eye or anything like that.
We said hi, gave each other a hug.
I was like, I just sawDune!
And it was actually really conducive to the dynamic between Bob and Joan.
Chalamet did a lot of that kind of thing, trying to keep his headspace clear.
He was relentless, says Norton.
No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing.
Nobody comes around us while were doing this.
Were trying to do the best we can with something thats so totemic and sacrosanct to many people.
And I agreed totally it was like, we cannot have a fucking audience for this.
Weve got to believe to the greatest degree we can.
And he was right to be that protective.
I related to the idea that my talent is my talent.
The thing you gotta say is the thing you gotta say.
Chalamet says he learned how to set a tone on set from his former co-stars.
Which is how the experience was for me onCall Me By Your Name.
He can sound almost plaintive as he tries to make all of this understood.
So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus.
He deserved that and then more…. God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy.
I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!
It certainly threw off other cast members.
Im walking down the street with a suitcase and no phone.
Chalamet doesnt want to complain about it.
That, you cant do anything about, truly, he says.
They also care about him, of course.
From the outside, at least, Chalamet seems to have navigated his fame with unusual elegance.
He dates Kylie Jenner, but mostly in private.
Hes more famous than any influencer, but posts less on social media than Dylan himself lately.
Even if its valid, its not really somewhere I want to go.
But part of him seems to yearn to be more enigmatic, more Dylan-like.
In our interviews, he veers between cant-help-himself confessional torrents and extreme caution, with little in between.
People do feel like they have an ownership of you.
How are you going to break free of that, or how do you carve your own path?…
Would we say Timothees rise to fame is the same as Bobs?
Its all relatively similar, right?
Youre young and then something hits, and then its like an explosion.
You are not a mystery.
Chalamet still hasnt met or talked to Dylan, though hed love to.
But Barbaro did have a chat with the real-life Baez.
And Im not really a person whos like, I had a dream about it.
I must go follow, she says.
It just felt like there needed to be a connection made.
Her life is so much more significant than just the part it played in Bobs life, Barbaro says.
She deserves her own biopic, limited series, whatever.
Baez herself helped Barbaro get over it.
At one point, she was like, Im just in my garden, looking at birds…. Barbaros Baez, true to life, carries herself as Dylans peer, sparring with him onstage and off.
I just couldnt, says Mangold.
If you have all these people, you end up with a parade.
Lets say 40 percent of the movie is music, right?
Now you only have 75 minutes left, including credits, to tell the human story.
Its incredible how fast you have to pick and choose what you investigate.
Jim was like, I just love that image so much.
Or, as Mangold puts it to me later: You cant make it like a Wikipedia entry.
The actress biggest challenge was trying to approximate Baezs singing voice, a more classically beautiful instrument than Dylans.
Barbaro had hardly sung in public before, let alone in a movie, so she was terrified.
Like Chalamet, she worked with vocal coach Eric Vetro, who trained Austin Butler to play Elvis Presley.
Even so, she doesnt expect to impress Baez herself.
Shell probably hear this and go, Nope!
Play for me, he said, and Barbaro found herself singing Dont Think Twice for the Terminator.
God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy.
I can be Timmy for the rest of my life!
The guy is 21 years old.
And somehow he knew then: You dont let people behind the fucking curtain.
Hes since had his normal teeth restored and regrown his hair.
He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, pushed to the margins of the culture.
It turns out Dylan is in fact a musical artist, not a political figure, Norton says.
Not to mention that Like a Rolling Stone was already charting at the time of the festival.
But the crowd, at least part of it, did boo him.
Jim wasnt interested in doing another documentary, Norton says.
He was interested in almost a fable.
You gotta not take yourself so fucking seriously.
In any case, Dylan himself has always had little interest in literal historical truth.
Hes such a troublemaker, he says, noting the singers obvious pleasure in obfuscation and distortion.
What do you care what other people think?
Thats when we start talking about destiny.
His time in Dylans home state, Chalamet says, reminded him of his visits to the French hinterlands.
So I would spend my summers in that region, and I would feel the exact same way.
You feel boxed in and you feel like you have something more to say.
I could relate to that so deeply in my own life, my own career, he continues.
He felt pointed toward a particular future, but also that he could be easily knocked off course.
If you want God to laugh at your plans, say them out loud.
In my early career, even close friends could say something that just throws you for a week.
And then, in determination, you gotta put yourself on a certain path.
I never changed my name, but I understood it.
I felt it in my core in some way.
Why would Robert Zimmerman need to become Bob Dylan?
He feels like it had nothing to do with him, in a sense.
And its a great source of existential strain.
I think theres probably always a pride in that for him.
And why is Chalamet drawn to these savior roles?
He laughs, finally.
Hey, man, he says, theyre findingme.Not the other way around.
During high school, he felt like he had to dodge drugs and alcohol everywhere.
I felt like I had this little nugget that I had to protect, of potential or something.
Its some shit at that age, he says.
But he quickly changes the subject.
But equally, you could look in that mirror too long and create a rut thats not there sometimes.
Fame can increase that danger: With attention or whatever, its like you gotta be extra careful.
He takes a breath.
And also not take yourself so fucking seriously.
Oh, my God, he says.
Ive never had that thought, but youre right.
Its an interesting thought!
