Edward Norton praises "magnificent" co-star Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown

17 January 2025, 07:00

Edward Norton praises "magnificent" co-star Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown

Bob Dylan is the latest music icon to get a big screen biopic, and it's already winning awards.

Timothee Chalamet plays legendary folk singer Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, which is released in UK cinemas today (January 17th).

Alongside him is Hollywood star Edward Norton as Dylan's folk hero Pete Seeger.

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Gold Radio's Kirsty Gallacher caught up with Edward about the film, where he praised his young co-star's performance as the enigmatic Dylan.

• Watch the interview in full above

Norton said: "Whatever Dylan gave us that I deeply love in the music itself and the songs itself, I think the other thing that he gave artists was the example of an artist who's very fierce in his defence of the magic of the work.

"When people would ask him, when he's 22 years old and the whole generation is wanting to anoint him as their representative and their voice. He rejected all of that. He rejected the ego of... When people would ask him, 'What's the meaning?' He would say, 'You figure out the meaning. I'm not going to talk about the meaning'. It's hard to overstate how rare that is for a young person to have the wisdom to say, 'It's more powerful if you figure it out for yourself'.

A Complete Unknown – Bob Dylan biopic official trailer

"It's taken me years and years to realise how difficult that is because the matrix of commercial... Everybody wants you to talk about it. In some sense, I think he was very fierce in his defence of the mystery, his own mystery and the mystery within the music. It's wonderful.

"I think that Timothée I don't even... It's rare I say this, but I think it's a magnificent performance."

"He does something that's almost impossible, which is really... He really inhabits this very iconic figure and makes him human, which I think is a great achievement."

On whether Bob himself has seen the movie or not, Edward admitted that he so far hasn't dared to meet his hero.

"Neither Timothee or I have met him. I've been friends with Bruce Springsteen for a long time, not to drop a name. But in a funny way, Bruce, to me, is more like Pete Seeger. He even did a whole record of Pete Seeger's songs called The Seeger Sessions.

"But I've been around Bruce, at Bruce's birthday party when Bob Dylan was there. I remember Bruce saying, 'You want to come over to me, Bob?' No. No, I didn't want to.

"Because I feel like there's certain people you meet. I worked with Robert De Niro, and I always revered him, and I'm glad I know him. But Dylan, I can't explain it. There's not that many people who are mystics. I want the mystery.

"I don't really want... Whoever he is, I don't really want to know him. I just want the music to remain mysterious."

A Complete Unknown is out now.