Bob Dylan’s likeness has been captured, in film, by actors ranging from Richard Gere to Cate Blanchett.
The next to ape the great’s tousled tresses: Timothee Chalamet, who most recently played Laurie in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.”
Deadline first reported Monday that the young actor — who is also in Netflix’s “The King” and stars in “Dune” later this year — will play the Duluth-born musician in a movie directed by James Mangold (“Ford v Ferrari,” “Walk the Line”). There is no title or timeline for the project yet — though it’s referred to as “Going Electric” by those in the biz, Deadline reported.
The movie will cover Dylan’s trajectory between 1960, when he first arrived in New York City, to the mid-1960s, when he retired (but ultimately did not retire).
Here’s everything we know about the project.
Timothee Chalamet arrives at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Jan. 27, 2019. (Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Timothee what-who?
Chalamet, 24, has really broken out in the past three years, including starring as Elio in “Call Me By Your Name.” He earned tons of big league kudos, including a nomination for an Academy Award and a spot on the New York Times’ best actors of the year. Before “Little Women,” he worked with Gerwig in “Lady Bird,” playing the title character’s boyfriend. He was a drug addict in “Beautiful Boy” and after starring in Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York,” he donated his pay to Time’s Up, LGBT Center of New York and the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
“I want to be worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave artists who are fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve,” he wrote on Instagram as part of his announcement.
But can he play the guitar?
Maybe. He reportedly took lessons in guitar, piano and Italian before “Call Me By Your Name” and, according to Deadspin, he is taking lessons to “familiarize himself with the acoustic and electric guitar.”
There is another Bob Dylan movie on the horizon, according to Hollywood media. (2013 file / News Tribune)
Is Bob Dylan into this? Is Bob Dylan into anything?
Dylan is seemingly into this. His name is attached as an executive producer, and his longtime manager, Jeff Rosen, is listed as one of the producers. Meanwhile, Dylan continues to be on the Never Ending Tour, which started in 1988. His next show, according to his website, is in April in Tokyo. He played Mankato, Minn., in October 2019.
But aren’t there a lot of movies about Bob Dylan?
There really are. It’s been mere months since Martin Scorsese’s “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story” (2019), which acted a lot like a documentary but wasn’t quite. Fact-fact, fact, and pure fiction (such a mega bummer that Sharon Stone didn’t travel with this cirque de misfits) combined to expand the ultimate urban legend that is Bob Dylan. This was familiar territory for Scorsese, who directed “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” (2005). Reviewer Roger Ebert described it as deep, sympathetic and perceptive and “yet finally leaves Dylan shrouded in mystery, which is where he properly lives.”
D.A. Pennebaker, a filmmaker who focused much of his career on counterculture movements, created the critically beloved documentary “Don’t Look Back,” which captures the many moods of young Bob Dylan, in 1967. There are more — including another one by Pennebaker and “Renaldo and Clara,” scenes that are glimpsed in the latest Scorsese.
Would it kill someone to make a movie not about Bob Dylan?
Seemingly, it would not. The only other noteworthy music bio-pic on the horizon is “Respect,” a movie about the late singer Aretha Franklin, starring Jennifer Hudson. “Respect” is slated to open in late 2020. Trailers are already screening in theaters.
Remind me why the News Tribune always reports on Bob Dylan’s doings?
Dylan, then Robert Zimmerman, was born in Duluth and spent his early years in Duluth’s Central Hillside before his family moved to Hibbing. We like to make a big deal about that.