Starstruck by Chalamet at Minnesota premiere of ‘A Complete Unknown’
The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” premiered Thursday at the Main Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The guest of honor was none other than the film’s star, Timothée Chalamet. Just as he did in Hibbing and Duluth, Chalamet left fans feeling starstruck.
He says it was his idea to visit Minnesota, the first time. He left the state some pretty good reviews, “I mean it sincerely. I loved Minnesota. The people are so… generous of spirit. As a 28-year-old New Yorker, I don’t think my path would have brought me out here.”
Bob Dylan spent most of his early years in Hibbing and was born in Duluth. The music icon also attended the University of Minnesota for a year in 1959.
Chalamet said he stayed at Airbnb above Duluth’s Best Bread and across from the Fond-du-Luth Casino. He also posted an Instagram of him sipping a brew at the Rathskeller. Staff say it was a People’s Pint.
As part of his research, he says he visited Bob Dylan’s house in Hibbing, Hibbing High School, Memorial Building. He describes a sense of nostalgia visiting it all, “Seeing how America had changed, how it has modernized, how it had decayed… “
“The way that I never got to talk to Bob Dylan- the way I comforted myself is that the Bob Dylan of today is not the Bob Dylan of the early 60s because we all change.”
Dylan did acknowledge Chalamet in a rather complimentary tweet: “There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!). Timothée Chalamet is starring in the lead role. 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. 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. After you’ve seen the movie read the book.”
Chalamet says he can’t put into words what this meant, “If my interaction with the legendary Bob Dylan is limited to that moment, it’ll be more than I ever could have dreamed of.”
A Complete Unknown is in theaters on Christmas Day.