Timothée Chalamet has taken on some wild roles over the past few years, from a young boy exploring his sexuality in Call Me by Your Name to noted March-sister homie hopper Laurie in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, to…a giant sandworm or someone who fights a giant sandworm or something in Dune. (I’m sorry, I’ve never seen either of those movies.) But now he’s gearing up for one of his biggest acting challenges yet: portraying none other than Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown.
Like pretty much everything Chalamet does, the first pictures of him in character as Dylan sparked immediate discourse. Here are the (arguably too many) thoughts I had about our earliest glimpse at Timmy as Bob.
- First of all, why is this movie called A Complete Unknown when there are so many better Dylan lyrics? (Personally, I’ve always been partial to “Your sons and your daughters \ are beyond your command,” but maybe that’s a little wordy.)
- Social media has had a lot of fun goofing on the various people Chalamet resembles in this photo, from an aughts Keira Knightley at the airport to Phoebe Buffay from Friends (okay, I posted that last one), but I’m suddenly struck by how much he looks like…Timothée Chalamet in a Bob Dylan costume.
- Bring back Cate Blanchett as Bob!
- The scarf. Let’s talk about the scarf. Is it…angora? Is it carpet? Is it weird-overstuffed-pillow-in-a-Seattle-coffeehouse material?
- I’d have to see more of the jeans to be sure, but they’re looking a little baggy in the thigh for an artist who looked so famously good in tight pants.
- Oh, newsboy cap, how I miss you and also dread your continued existence.
- Should I write a lengthy cultural history of the newsboy cap?
- It would have to include an extended ode to Marissa Cooper (RIP) from The O.C., of course.
- I do think Chalamet has the right delicate yet masculine facial architecture to portray Dylan, not that anyone asked me (rudely).
- Can he sing?
- Oh yeah, I guess he was just in Wonka, singing quite a bit.
- How does one prepare vocally to impersonate Bob Dylan? A steady diet of cigs? Gargling with marbles?
- Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether this movie is a flop, a slay, or some nebulous third thing; to paraphrase Chalamet himself in Little Women, I’ll watch.
