Timothée Chalamet Wants His Forthcoming Portrayal of Bob Dylan to Be On Par with Austin Butler’s Famous Elvis Presley Performance

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 7 March 2024

Austin Butler didn’t just play Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis—he completely and totally embodied the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. From the voice to the mannerisms, Butler fully became Presley, and his role in the 2022 film earned Butler his first Oscar nomination, as well as wins at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs.

Timothée Chalamet is the next actor to attempt to embody a music legend, but this time, the legend is still living: Variety reports that Chalamet will play singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in the upcoming movie A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold, who previously helmed Ford v. Ferrari and Walk the Line, a fellow biopic in the so-called “musical cinematic universe” about Johnny Cash. The project—which was originally called Going Electric—was announced in early 2020. (Presley, by the way, died in 1977 at just 42 years old.)

Timothée Chalamet — Chalamet is set to play Bob Dylan in an upcoming biopic

Chalamet and Butler are co-stars in the recently released Dune: Part Two, and, if Chalamet has his way, they’ll be co-stars again, even if in a minor way, in A Complete Unknown. “I’ve been picking Austin’s brain nonstop, but I feel—let’s let my film come out before I’m so lucky as to get included with Austin, but he did such a phenomenal job,” Chalamet said when asked if he and Butler had conversations about playing music legends. “But I do feel prideful about that, too, because those are two artists that—I can’t speak from Elvis’ perspective, but deep in the Bob Dylan lore now, he had tremendous respect for Elvis and Sun Records.”

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“I can’t wait for that film,” Butler said of the Dylan project. “I wish I could be on set every day to just watch the magic happen.”

Then, the pitch: “I wish you were in it!” Chalamet said in response. “There’s an Elvis character in the Johnny Cash biopic [Walk the Line]. It’s really brief, it’s very brief, but I was kind of wishing we could create a musical cinematic universe.”

Stay tuned as to whether that happens—our fingers are crossed for more Butler as Elvis, and more Butler and Chalamet together onscreen.

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.