Ever since the one-two punch of Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird, Timothée Chalamet has had it real good, earning awards for the drug saga Beautiful Boy, scoring the lead role in the latest stab at Frank Herbert’s Dune, and offering viewers a Laurie for the ages in Greta Gerwig’s new Little Women. (And them, of course, there’s his Twitter jabs with John Mulaney.) Now he may have his most challenging and iconic role all rolled into one: As per a Deadline exclusive, he’s in final talks to play Bob Dylan in a biopic from James Mangold, director Walk the Line.
Since Chalamet’s not even 25 yet, the film will naturally focus on a significant slither of the beloved musician’s life: when he went electric. Chalamet will play Dylan in his controversial mid-’60s period when he stunned his giant fanbase by taking his folk digs and adding electric guitars and drums — a move that not only shocked but enraged many of his followers, even as it widened his audience and produced such classic hits as “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Like a Rolling Stone,” to cite only two.
Chalamet’s a little busy at the moment: In April he’ll make his London stage debut at the Old Vic, performing 4,000 Miles alongside Eileen Atkins. Once that closes, in May, he’ll likely get to the film, which is called, of course, Going Electric. At that time someone with extremely good, floppy locks will get to play a legend with an even better head of hair.
When (or possibly should) Chalamet plays Dylan, he’ll join the short-but-not-that-short list of actors who’ve played the folk icon. Many of those are in one film: Todd Haynes’ 2007 experimental biopic I’m Not There, in which he was played by six different actors: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, and, in an Oscar-nominated turn, Cate Blanchett.
(Via Deadline)
