In “A Complete Unknown,” which opens in theaters on Christmas Day, Timothée Chalamet undergoes a whole transformation as Bob Dylan.
And when he performs early Bard classics reminiscent of “It Ain’t Me Babe,” it is rather a lot the 28-year-old actor doing his personal singing and enjoying on guitar and harmonica — after 5 years of learning to grasp the music of the folk-rock legend.
“When I first got together with Tim, I heard some of the stuff they had prerecorded, and I said, ‘Who’s singing this stuff?’” Rob Paparozzi, Chalamet’s harmonica coach on “A Complete Unknown,” instructed The Submit. “He said, ‘That’s me. I’m singing all my own parts.’ I was floored, you know, because I was so impressed … Timmy had already put in some time and committed to this. So it wasn’t like he just wanted to fake this thing.”
Actually, Chalamet so completely nailed the task that he carried out reside throughout filming moderately than singing to the prerecorded music.
“The prerecords are very necessary, and they work well,” stated vocal coach Eric Vetro, “but the fact that he could just go into it so easily and everything would fall into place every time, like he had been [doing] it his whole life, I thought they’re gonna want to do this live.”
After working with Chalamet on 2023’s “Wonka,” Vetro was recruited by the actor once more for “A Complete Unknown.”
“Because he was already very steeped in the world of Dylan, my job was more to keep his voice healthy, make sure he always warmed up, make sure he knew how to use his voice properly so he wouldn’t wear it out or get hoarse,” he stated. “So that was my concern, because he already had a good inkling of how to do Dylan.”
However along with holding his voice in form, Vetro helped Chalamet hit the appropriate notes in his Dylan supply.
“I would start morphing the exercises into ones that I thought would gear his voice to sound a little bit more like Bob, keeping his facial muscles a little bit more relaxed, his mouth a little bit more like Bob’s,” he defined.
“Bob Dylan’s voice is pretty multilayered. It’s nasal and it’s a little raspy. He is very sincere when he’s singing. He doesn’t dazzle you. He’s the opposite of that. So it becomes trickier, in a way, to be able to really convey that to an audience. But Timothée was able to completely capture that about him, and that’s what makes him such a good actor. He also has a very good ear, so he was able to pick up on the quirkiness and the uniqueness of Bob’s voice.”
However Vetro needed Chalamet to do extra of an interpretation than an impersonation.
“Whenever I do any of these things, whether it was for the ‘Elvis’ movie, the ‘Judy’ movie, any of them … you don’t you don’t want to encourage the actor to become an impersonator,” stated Vetro. “You want them to capture the essence. So even if the song is a little different than Bob actually sang it at that moment, it rings true because it’s with the same feeling.”
Guitar coach Larry Saltzman started working with Chalamet in 2019, when the actor was getting ready for capturing on “A Complete Unknown” to begin earlier.
“In the very beginning, he went to Guitar Center and bought a guitar,” recalled Saltzman. “He just basically went there and picked out something that he liked, and it was not an expensive instrument either.”
Chalamet saved getting classes and training via COVID and in between different tasks — with the mission of studying the 13 Dylan songs that he performs within the movie.
“I went through the script, and I kind of ordered them in a hierarchy,” he stated. “Those a little bit easier to play are the ones I’ll start with, and then I’m going to work my way through the harder ones. I think the first song that we started with was ‘Masters of War.’”
Chalamet was as much as the duty of performing double obligation with guitar and vocals. “He played and sang at the same time right away, which was really impressive and really smart,” stated Saltzman. “He must be his personal one-man band. Ninety p.c of it or extra goes to be Bob onstage alone. Bob is actually like a tough and prepared self-accompanist. And one of many actual challenges is the right-hand strumming stuff, as a result of that’s actually the place the groove is available in.
“The real skill is in the right hand, which is where all the dynamics and the light and shade and the propulsion of the whole thing happens,” he continued. “And I always say that’s very difficult to teach someone to do at a high, competent level. But this was something that Tim just took to, like, immediately and ate for breakfast. He got right into it.”
Maybe the hardest tune for Chalamet to overcome on guitar was “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”
“‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ is a really hard one,” stated Saltzman. “But, you know, he never got hung up on something. He just rose to the occasion every time. I think it’s a combination of hard work and just a gift.”
Paparozzi started teaching Chalamet on harmonica after the actor had already been coaching on it for 4 years.
“By the time I got him, he was familiar, he knew his way around on the instrument,” he stated.
However blowing like Dylan is not any breeze. “Dylan’s style is quirky, like his singing and his guitar playing,” stated Paparozzi. “And he never plays the same thing twice on the harmony, just plays it the way he plays it. So it’s hard for a professional harmonica player like myself to say, ‘OK, this is what Dylan is doing,’ because it’s not a set thing, it’s not a written-out thing. It’s hard to copy that as a harmonica player.”
Chalamet mastered “the really good feel” that was needed on the harmonica. “You can’t see it in your mouth, and you’re feeling it,” he stated. “You’re feeling where you’re playing.”
However Chalamet additionally discovered how you can play hands-free harmonica with a holder when he had no really feel in any respect, whereas additionally cradling his guitar.
“It was hard locking in on the guitar and harmonica together, but he wanted to nail it,” stated Paparozzi. “And he did.”
