Oscar Isaac Thought Timothée Chalamet Playing Bob Dylan Was a ‘Bad Idea’ Until He Sang and Played Guitar on ‘Dune’ Set

variety.com:

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter Oscar Isaac admits he may have been wrong. He didn’t initially understand the casting of his “Dune: Part Two” co-star Timothée Chalamet as the great folk icon Bob Dylan in director James Mangold’s upcoming musical biopic “A Complete Unknown.” According to Isaac, Chalamet was telling him and their fellow “Dune” actors Josh Brolin and Stephen McKinley Henderson about the project on the set of the epic sci-fi sequel — and Isaac, a devoted Dylan fan, had raised his eyebrow about the whole thing.

Set in New York in the early 1960s, “A Complete Unknown” chronicles the early life and times of Dylan who arrived in Greenwich Village an enigmatic, freewheelin’ 19-year-old from Minnesota and forever changed the folk community. “My first thought was… sounds like a really bad idea.

I mean, it’s Dylan. It’s the holy of holies for me. It just didn’t sound right,” Isaac recalled at the Gotham Awards on Monday night.

He presented Chalamet and Mangold with the Visionary Tribute. “Then, Timmy takes out his guitar. Not a good sign.” But Isaac, Brolin and Henderson were quickly won over after hearing Chalamet (who does his own singing in “A Complete Unknown”) perform a rendition Dylan’s 1963 hit “Girl From the North Country.” “Josh, Stephen and I aren’t your average Timmy groupies.