Bob Dylan Won't Be Dubbed Over Timothee Chalamet in Biopic

When he stars as Bob Dylan in a biopic about the singer expected to start filming this summer, Timothee Chalamet will be doing the singing himself. Asked whether the actor would be doing so—rather than having Dylan's own voice dubbed in—director James Mangold responded, "Of course!" Chalamet has been attached to the biopic for more than three years. As Collider notes, Taron Egerton's Oscar-nominated role as Elton John in Rocket Man proved "you don't need to sound like the singer in order to capture the imagination of the audience." Chalamet was previously reported to have started guitar lessons in preparation for playing Dylan.

Per Deadline, Mangold told Collider in an interview that "it’s such an amazing time in American culture and the story of Bob—a young 19-year-old Bob Dylan coming to New York with like two dollars in his pocket and becoming a worldwide sensation within three years. First being embraced into the family of folk music in New York and kind of outrunning them at a certain point as his star rises so beyond belief." He says such luminaries as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Joan Baez will "have a role to play in this movie." Mangold tweeted in December that the film will be titled "A Complete Unknown," a lyric from Dylan's song "Like a Rolling Stone." (More Timothee Chalamet stories.)