Come gather ’round, people, wherever you roam. The trailer for James Mangold‘s “A Complete Unknown” is here, along with the first official footage of Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
In theaters this December, the biographical drama, written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, follows the folk music legend’s early years in New York City, leading up to the Earth-shattering moment he strapped on an electric guitar during his 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance.
In the trailer, Chalamet walks the streets of Manhattan, passing Dylan’s favorite spots including Cafe Wha? and Hotel Chelsea. The actor also sings a rousing rendition of Dylan’s 1963 protest song “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” A love triangle seems begins to brew between Dylan and Monica Barbaro’s Joan Baez and Elle Fanning’s Sylvie Russo, who appears to be a fictionalized version of Dylan’s then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo, who appears on the album cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.”
Rounding out the cast are Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, P. J. Byrne as Harold Leventhal, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman and Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth, among others.
Based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book “Dylan Goes Electric” and originally titled “Going Electric,” “A Complete Unknown” borrows a phrase from Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” — the plugged-in folk-rock anthem that changed everything.
Mangold has described the Dylan in his movie as “a wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life.” His arrival ignites an “upheaval in the folk community and what they thought was proper folk and illicit folk.” The real-life Dylan, who is 83, gave notes on the script and took multiple meetings with Mangold.
The film began production in March in New York and New Jersey, as paparazzi photos of Chalamet went viral on social media.
From Searchlight Pictures, “A Complete Unknown” is produced by Michael Bederman, Fred Berger, Bob Bookman, Chalamet, Alan Gasmer, Alex Heineman, Peter Jaysen, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Mangold, Andrew Rona and Jeff Rosen.
Watch the trailer below.