Timothée Chalamet “very much wanted to” sing live as Bob Dylan while filming A Complete Unknown, according to director James Mangold.

The teaser trailer for A Complete Unknown was released on Wednesday, showing the Oscar-nominated actor performing the 1963 song A Hard Rain’s a‐Gonna Fall in character as Dylan.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Mangold revealed that Chalamet spent years practising how to perform as the music legend.

“If Timmy’s brave enough to stand out there and make himself vulnerable, throwing himself at this, I should be brave enough to stand behind the camera and shoot,” the filmmaker said. “And Timmy was a partner in this. He very much wanted to. And the multiple years of preparation that we had on this movie because of false starts with Covid and stuff meant that Timmy really had a kind of incubation as a musician that was years in happening.”

The film begins with Dylan, a 19-year-old Minnesota musician, arriving in New York in 1961 with his acoustic guitar and ends shortly after he “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

Mangold went on to praise the Call Me By Your Name star for “growing the character” from a 19-year-old boy to a music star.

“Timmy finds the path to carry us there. It’s going to be impossible for people in trailers or teasers or photos to see, but the way he grows this character is a real act of acting brilliance in my opinion,” he gushed.

A Complete Unknown also stars Elle Fanning as Dylan’s girlfriend Sylvie Russo, Monica Barbaro as singer Joan Baez, and Edward Norton as folk legend Pete Seeger.

The film will be released in U.K. cinemas in January 2025. It is expected to premiere in the U.S. in December.

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