Well, he’s not an infidel with this one. Bob Dylan has heaped a load of praise on his upcoming biopic, A Complete Unknown, shattering the hopes of the 0.1 percent of Spotify superfans who were hoping their master would never acknowledge the project. As has become his new hobby, Dylan casually tweeted his approval on December 4. “There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role,” he wrote. “Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.” While Dylan’s phrasing implies he hasn’t watched the film, he confirmed in his own Goodreads way that he has read the source material it’s based on. “The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric — a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ’60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport,” he added. “After you’ve seen the movie read the book.” Does he have anything to say about Club Chalamet?
Wald was “very pleasantly surprised” by the tweet. Speaking with Vulture, the biographer said there was never any indication over the past nine years that Dylan was aware of the book. “I interpreted the tweet as if he read it and liked it,” Wald explained. “Honestly, I always assumed he read my Robert Johnson book, because that’s what he tends to read. I had been told that he doesn’t read Dylan books. I wasn’t expecting this. It’s the biggest compliment one can ask for.” As Dylan’s team were the ones who optioned the book for a potential film, Wald believed the enthusiasm was relegated to such an inner circle. “So, I knew that his people liked the book and were involved,” he said. “But that he personally had read the book? Are you kidding? I had no idea.” As for the rationale behind Dylan’s thriving, yes-it’s-really-him Twitter account, Wald offered his own insider theory. “Everybody was surprised when Chronicles came out, and everybody was surprised at how straightforward Chronicles was. Dylan is surprising,” he noted. “His old line about containing multitudes? Yeah, that’s him all right.”
This article has been updated with additional quotes.