Few actors have been as busy as Timothée Chalamet over the past few years, so we can’t blame you if you completely forgot that he was supposed to play Bob Dylan in a biopic from James Mangold. Though it’s been nearly three years since the casting was announced, Chalamet insists that the project — titled Going Electric — is still going “in a very positive direction.”
The Dune hero offered an update in a recent cover story for Variety: “I haven’t stopped preparing, which has been one of the greatest gifts for me,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful experience getting to dive into that world, whether we get to make it or not. But without giving anything away — because I don’t want to beat anyone to the punch, and obviously things have to come together officially — the winds that are blowing are blowing in a very positive direction.”
But the silver lining of the pandemic gave Chalamet some time to get away from his New York City hometown and enjoy a stay upstate, where Dylan famously spent a large portion of his life. He told GQ at the time: “It’s not like I’m suffering from lack of connection otherwise, but it just really feels like I’m connecting to something here.”
Production hasn’t yet begun on the Dylan biopic, and won’t until next year at the earliest. Chalamet is still in the thick of a press tour for the cannibal romance Bones and All, which he’s juggling with production on Dune 2. Before the sci-fi sequel comes out, though, we’ll see him as a young Willy Wonka in the origin film Wonka.
Aside from Dune, 2021 also gave us Chalamet supporting roles in The French Dispatch and Don’t Look Up.