Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown: The cast and the real-life people they play revealed

18 July 2024, 10:26

We round up the not-so-complete-unknowns playing Bob Dylan and the superstars around him.

Bob Dylan has been the subject of countless films over the years, but he's finally getting the down-the-line big-screen biopic that's felt long overdue.

A Complete Unknown is directed and co-written by James Mangold, the man who arguably kickstarted the modern music movie with his stellar Johnny Cash film Walk the Line back in 2005.

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As well as a top-notch script, classy direction and the rights to the music, the one thing feature biopics really need is a cast that can really convince you that you're watching your heroes doing their thing, rather than actors just pretending.

On looks at least, it seems as though Mangold and his casting team have done just that, with some excellent choices for the main players in the movie.

Below we've rounded up the main cast and let you know a little bit about the key figure and the actor playing them.

Bob Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet)

After picking up some decent credits in TV and movies in Homeland and Interstellar, New York-born French-American actor Timothée Chalamet broke through as the lead in 2017's Call Me By Your Name.

He won an Oscar nod for that performance, and followed it up with turns in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Little Women, before taking the big screen by storm as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies and as Willy Wonka in 2023's Wonka reimagining.

Bob Dylan is simply one of the most important figures in popular music, who burst onto the scene in the early 1960s as a folkie, before conquering the world of pop, rock and much more, and becoming the only musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro)

Monica Barbaro had appeared in the movies The Cathedral, Top Gun: Maverick and At Midnight. She played Lisa Apple in TV show Splitting Up Together, and also featured in UnReal, Chicago Justice and The Good Cop.

Joan Baez remains one of the greatest contemporary American folk stars, and one who stuck with the music and message of protest over the years. Like so many of her records, her stunning set at Woodstock was a cultural landmark.

Sylvie Russo, based on Suze Rotolo (Elle Fanning)

Elle Fanning followed in her older sister Dakota's footsteps, first as a child star in I Am Sam, Babel and others, before taking the lead in Sofa Coppola's Somewhere and JJ Abrams Super 8.

More recently she has played major roles on the big and small screen, as well as appearing on Broadway, and she won Golden Globes for her performance as Catherine the Great in period satire The Great.

Sylvie Russo isn't a real person but is thought to be based at least in part on Bob Dylan's one-time girlfriend Suze Rotolo. A strong influence on the early Dylan and an artist in her own right, Suze appeared on the front of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in one of rock's most enduring images. Rotolo died in 2011.

Pete Seeger (Edward Norton)

Edward Norton earned serious critical acclaim in his early acting career, with awards and nominations for Primal Fear, American History X and Fight Club.

He branched out into production and directing, but has continued to act, with more recent roles in everything from The Incredible Hulk and Birdman to Red Dragon, Moonrise Kingdom and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Pete Seeger was one of the pre-eminent singer-activists of the pre-Dylan folk era, both as an interpreter of standards like 'We Shall Overcome' and a songwriter of new classics, like 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone?', 'If I Had a Hammer' and 'Turn! Turn! Turn!'. He was a key early backer of Dylan's career. Seeger died in 2014.

Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook)

A model and actor, Boyd Holbrook is perhaps best known for his TV stint as DEA agent Steve Murphy in Narcos, and has racked up countless TV credits over the last couple of decades.

On the big screen, he's popped up in films as diverse as Milk, Logan, Gone Girl and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Johnny Cash was a country, gospel and rock legend, whose life has already been explored in Mangold's classic Walk the Line movie.

After creating the boom-chicka-boom sound with the Tennessee Two, Cash also played a key role in the Outlaw Country scene, and enjoyed one of the all-time great comebacks when he joined forces with Rick Rubin for the American series. He died in 2003.

Harold Leventhal (P. J. Byrne)

PJ Byrne is a character actor with enough film and TV credits to fill up several careers. Sticking a pin in his biggest roles gives you The Wolf of Wall Street, The Boys, Final Destination 5, Babylon and Big Little Lies.

Harold Leventhal was a figure in popular music long before Dylan. He was there at the dawn of the pop age as a song plugger for Irving Berlin, and then worked with Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra. He went on to help popularise folk as the manager of The Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Don McLean and countless others. Leventhal died in 2005.

Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy)

Scoot McNairy is one of the bubbling-under stars of the 21st-century telly, with key roles in True Detective, Godless and Narcos: Mexico.

He's also had important roles in big-screen hits like Monsters, Argo, 12 Years a Slave, Gone Girl and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Bob Dylan absorbed a load of pre-pop influences in his early career, but perhaps his most important was Woody Guthrie, an anti-fascist and folk hero in every sense of the phrase, whose masterful 'This Land Is Your Land' still packs a punch today. Woody died in 1967, aged just 55, after a long struggle with Huntington's disease.

Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler)

Dan Fogler has won plenty of love for his voice work in the animated movies for Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears a Who!, and Mars Needs Moms. His best-known live-action role is probably Jacob Kowalski in the Fantastic Beasts movies. He's also written and directed, with his horror comedy Hysterical Psycho and 2014's Don Peyote being standouts.

Albert Grossman is one of the most important folk and rock managers, with his clients including not just Bob Dylan but also Janis Joplin, Peter Paul and Mary, Te Band and Ian & Sylvia, among others.

Bob Neuwirth (Will Harrison)

Will Harrison hasn't had a major movie role before, but he's had some pretty relevant telly experience. He was in the music series Daisy Jones & the Six – loosely based on Fleetwood Mac – as Graham Dunne. He also played David Herold in Manhunt.

Bob Neuwirth was a folk singer who co-wrote Janis Joplin's 'Mercedes Benz'. He also recorded the Last Day on Earth collaboration with John Cale in 1994. Something of a cult legend, he was also an associate and road manager of Bob Dylan, working with him in the 1960s and reuniting with him for the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue.

Alan Lomax (Norbert Leo Butz)

Norbert Leo Butz is one of only nine actors in history who have won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical twice (for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Catch Me If You Can).

He's best known for his Broadway work, but has also racked up plenty of TV and movie credits, with his runs on Bloodline and Mercy Street being especially notable.

Alan Lomax was one of the key folk academics and archivists of the 20th century, and his work helped kickstart the folk revival. He even helped introduce Dylan to the scene.

"Alan was one of those who unlocked the secrets of this kind of music," said Bob himself years later. "So if we've got anybody to thank, it's Alan."

Toshi Seeger (Eriko Hatsune)

Eriko Hatsune is a Japanese actor who has worked mainly in her home country including the lead in Uzumaki when she was just 18. She had a major role in the American-Japanese movie Emperor. in 2012, opposite Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox.

Toshi Seeger was born in Munich to an American mum and a Japanese exile dad. She was a filmmaker with a focus on folk music, who married Pete Seeger in 1943 after meeting him at a square dance a few years earlier. Toshi helped set up the Newport Folk Festival.

Al Kooper (Charlie Tahan)

After child roles in American Loser and I Am Legend, Charlie Tahan had major parts in TV shows Wayward Pines, Gotham and Ozark. His voice role as Victor Frankenstein in Tim Burton's animated classic Frankenweeni is definitely worthy of mention, too.

Al Kooper is a key player in the Bob Dylan story, and so much more beyond that. That's his organ on 'Like A Rolling Stone'. It's also his French horn and piano on The Rolling Stones' 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'. As well as a musician, he was a songwriter and producer. He joined Blood, Sweat & Tears and gave the band their name, though he left before they broke through. Al has also released a load of solo albums.

Mavis Staples (Laura Kariuki)

Laura Kariuki is maybe best known for her role in the recent reboot of The Wonder Years, and she's also had parts in Black Lightning, Along for the Ride and American Horror Stories.

As a singer and civil rights activist, Mavis Staples is an all-timer. She rose to prominence as part of The Staples Singers with hits like 'I'll Take You There' and 'Let's Do It Again', before she became a solo superstar at the end of the 1960s.