How Timothée Chalamet mastered the music of Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown’

In “A Complete Unknown,” which opens in theaters on Christmas Day, Timothée Chalamet undergoes a complete transformation as Bob Dylan. 

And when he performs early Bard classics such as “It Ain’t Me Babe,” it is very much the 28-year-old actor doing his own singing and playing on guitar and harmonica — after five years of studying to master 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,” told The Post. “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.”

In fact, Chalamet so totally nailed the assignment that he performed live during filming rather than singing to the prerecorded music.

“The prerecords are very necessary, and they work well,” said 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 again 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 said. “So that was my concern, because he already had a good inkling of how to do Dylan.” 

But in addition to keeping his voice in shape, Vetro helped Chalamet hit the right notes in his Dylan delivery.

“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 explained.

“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.”

But Vetro wanted Chalamet to do more 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,” said 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 began working with Chalamet in 2019, when the actor was preparing for shooting on “A Complete Unknown” to start 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 kept getting lessons and practicing through COVID and in between other projects — with the mission of learning the 13 Dylan songs that he plays in the film.

“I went through the script, and I kind of ordered them in a hierarchy,” he said. “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 up to the task of performing double duty with guitar and vocals. “He played and sang at the same time right away, which was really impressive and really smart,” said Saltzman. “He has to be his own one-man band. Ninety percent of it or more is going to be Bob onstage alone. Bob is really like a rough and ready self-accompanist. And one of the real challenges is the right-hand strumming stuff, because that’s really where the groove comes 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.”

Perhaps the toughest tune for Chalamet to conquer on guitar was “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

“‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ is a really hard one,” said 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 began coaching Chalamet on harmonica after the actor had already been training on it for four years. 

“By the time I got him, he was familiar, he knew his way around on the instrument,” he said. 

But blowing like Dylan is no breeze. “Dylan’s style is quirky, like his singing and his guitar playing,” said 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 necessary on the harmonica. “You can’t see it in your mouth, and you’re feeling it,” he said. “You’re feeling where you’re playing.”

But Chalamet also learned how to play hands-free harmonica with a holder when he had no feel at all, while also cradling his guitar.

“It was hard locking in on the guitar and harmonica together, but he wanted to nail it,” said Paparozzi. “And he did.”