Timothée Chalamet: “Cynicism is stronger today than in the sixties”

By Violaine Schütz.

Wherever he goes, the 29-year-old Franco-American actor unleashes excitement and passions. We still remember the phenomenal press tour for Dune: Part Two last year, or that time in October 2024 when he showed up, grinning, to his own lookalike contest in New York… and left empty-handed.

On January 14th, 2025, at the London premiere of A Complete Unknown – a feature film finally landing on Disney+ in October 2025 – Timothée Chalamet turned heads by arriving on the red carpet dressed in a psychedelic Martine Rose suit and shirt, riding a Lime electric bike. He instantly took the internet by storm… And ended up paying a fine for improper bike parking…

The next day, at the Grand Rex in Paris, he came to defend the same film under a cap, more low profile (sporting a half-streetwear, half-rock Chanel look). But even with his face hidden under the accessory, the actor caused hysteria among the crowd of fans who came to greet him and demanded autographs and hugs.

Timothée Chalamet in an interview in Paris for A Complete Unknown

It was on Wednesday, January 16, 2025, that, for our part, we met the young man who seems, off the set, rather shy, humble and reserved. In one of the refined salons of the Bristol, in Paris, Timothée Chalamet came to talk to the press about the biopic – very successful – dedicated to Bob Dylan’s early years.

Alongside the magnetic actress Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez in the film), Edward Norton (who plays musician Pete Seeger) and director James Mangold, he answers journalists’ questions in almost perfect French.

Even if he specifies that he must stay several days in France before he can fully master the language and avoid sometimes wobbly turns. Some confessions will thus remain as poetic as they are enigmatic, like this one: “I’m almost 30 years old, and I have fewer and fewer fears. The world is strange enough, so why choose to live a life that comes with fears ?”

Often lowering his head as if to minimize his megastar status but displaying a smile and an irresistible nonchalance, the actor revealed by Call Me by Your Name (2018) – rare in interviews – tells with passion the behind-the-scenes of A Complete Unknown, which will be released on January 29, 2025 in theaters.

For starters, the actor, dressed in low-rise baggy jeans and an ultra-pop black and green polka dot sweater, explains that there were a billion reasons that drew him to this major project for which he slipped into the shoes of the folk legend before she became the icon of a generation known for its anti-war anthems.

The film plunges us into the early 1960s and at that time, the composer with the nasal voice and the monster talent Robert Allen Zimmerman was not yet the Nobel Prize for Literature Dylan. He tried to make a name for himself in the committed and abundant New York scene of the time, playing concerts in cafés and making important meetings (Johnny Cash crossed his path).

“It’s the role that has impacted me the most in my entire career.” – Timothée Chalamet

“I was first contacted for this project in 2018 or 2019,” recalls Timothée Chalamet, “at the time when my career was taking off. I was sent research materials on Bob Dylan that immediately interested me, including interviews from his early days (which can be seen on YouTube) where he was confrontational and mysterious. Even before listening to his music, I liked these interviews that we wouldn’t do today, with bizarre answers, which make no sense. The musician was indeed known to be difficult in interviews, answering questions on the side or simply with a sentence.

The actor also says he likes, beyond the very secretive and cunning character, “his music, what he represented in the 60s in the United States, Japan, France.” He adds: “Five and a half years later, I can say that this is the role that has impacted me the most in my entire career. I’m proud of all my films, but this one has influenced me personally. “The transformative experience allowed him to behave differently as a man and an artist.

Bob Dylan’s songs were not entirely familiar to the man who learned to play the guitar and harmonica and to sing (but also gained 9 kilos) to play the author of the pacifist song Blowin’ in the Wind. “I grew up streaming music on iTunes: rap, hip-hop, pop, in 2008-2009. Thanks to this film and Bob Dylan, I opened up to other artists from the sixties and to little-known songs from the Beatles and Rolling Stones‘ repertoire. The hero of Dune compares the musical emulation of the 60s in his country to what happened in France, on the cinema side, with The New Wave. There was the same desire for artistic transformation in France at that time.”

A Gen Z idol (who identifies with his fluid masculinity) followed by nearly 20 million followers on Instagram and dating a real influencer (Kylie Jenner), Timothée Chalamet nevertheless has a real reflection on the age of cell phones, very far from Dylan’s. “For young people aged 18 to 25 who didn’t have this education, this culture was really a way of understanding the world. Today, it’s very difficult to get everyone in the same room ” he admits.

“In the 60s, young artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez or like the writer James Baldwin thought that art could change things.” – Timothée Chalamet

Asked about the differences between the era of Bob Dylan’s rise and contemporary America governed by Trump, Timothée Chalamet is nostalgic. “In the 60s, young artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez or the writer James Baldwin thought, optimistically (because there was no precedent), that art could change a political aspect or a cultural attitude. It’s different today because there is a cynicism that is stronger. And for the younger generations, the obstacles are perhaps greater than those that existed in the 60s, especially in terms of politics and the environment.”

The hero of Wonka adds: “It would be nice if a figure like Bob Dylan came out today. But every time someone releases a movie or a song, who wants to optimistically change things, they do it in a way that can be seen as too much corporate.”

Playing Bob Dylan, a major challenge

Before A Complete Unknown, there was Todd Haynes‘ excellent I’m Not There (2007) inspired by different episodes in the singer’s life and featuring Cate Blanchett and the recreation of a cult concert of the music icon by singer Cat Power during which he betrays the folk cause by playing rock (a passage at the center of James Mangold’s film).

If Timothée Chalamet, who admits that there are many biopics in Hollywood, brilliantly embodies a complex and interesting version, at once passionate, inhabited, determined, alone, tormented and arrogant, of the indecipherable and rebellious author of protest songs, it has not been without pitfalls.

To become the Bob Dylan of the 60s who fell under the spell of Joan Baez, the actor admits to having come up against a lack of visual references. During the press conference, he explained: ” There is more documentary material about Dylan in ’63, ’64, ’65 than there was in the early ’60s. Few things existed at the time, especially in video, apart from demos. Even historians and mega fans of Bob are less familiar with this period. “

“I would have loved to meet Bob Dylan and I still want to.” – Timothée Chalamet

The actor nominated for the 2025 Oscars for this film also confesses: “I knew more about Dylan’s rock music, the one from ’65, than folk music before starting this film. But there’s a lot of freedom when you’re alone on the guitar playing folk. You can find your rhythm, take your time. I felt the more well-known songs like Like a Rolling Stone as a trap.”

Timothée Chalamet confides that Bob Dylan deserved to be 150% invested in playing him in a film. If he immersed himself deeply in the lifestyle of the 60s, going so far as to turn off his phone and cut himself off from social networks during filming, the actor did not cross paths with the one he plays with accuracy and nuance. “I would have liked I still want to. But my respect for Bob Dylan is greater than my desire to meet him. I understand that he is a mysterious person, who is not fully into the public aspect and who is not going to make new friends at 83 years old! “.

On X (ex-Twitter), Bob Dylan was full of praise for Timothée Chalamet a few weeks ago, calling the actor Timmy and calling him a brilliant actor while declaring that he was convinced that he would be great in his suede jackets on screen. It is not known if, since then, the composer, painter and poet, has seen the film. But one thing is for sure, he could have written his song I Contain Multitudes for the hero of Dune, Wonka and Bones and All, as the latter includes a multitude of facets and possibilities.

A Complete Unknown (2025) by James Mangold, available on Disney+ on October 30th, 2025.