“Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me.” The love-in between Bob Dylan and Hollywood star Timothée Chalamet, who’s playing Dylan in the forthcoming biopic A Complete Unknown, is a pure and precious thing

Bob Dylan has stoked anticipation for the forthcoming Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown by hailing leading man Timothée Chalamet as “a brilliant actor”, and adding “I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me.”

Set to screen in cinemas on Christmas Day, December 25, A Complete Unknown is rooted in the New York music scene of the early 1960s, and follows the young Bob Dylan, portrayed by Chalamet, on his meteoric rise to global fame, culminating in his legendary, controversial electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

The film, directed and co-written by James Mangold, also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, with Elle Fanning playing Dylan’s artist girlfriend Suze Rotolo.

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.