Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet has added extra weight to his case for Best Actor, revealing that he gained 20 pounds to play Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.
“I’ve turned over every stone. I did all the work, like you just described, physicality, behavior-wise,” Chalamet said in a recent interview with NPR. “But something we haven’t really talked about, I also put on 20 pounds because, believe it or not, I was thinner than the guy.”
As Variety points out, Chalamet has previously spoken about receiving feedback for his smaller physique while auditioning for action roles. “If I auditioned for The Maze Runner or Divergent, things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up, the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,’” he told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe late last year.
Rather than heeding an agent’s instructions to put on weight, Chalamet focused on roles in “very personalized movies” like Call Me by Your Name, Lady Bird, and Little Women. Eventually, the “confidence” he gained from those movies led to starring roles in Wonka and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films.
As Chalamet showed off on Saturday Night Live last weekend, he also dove headfirst into learning to sing and play guitar like Dylan for A Complete Unknown. Revisit our 2024 interview with the actor for more insight.
Meanwhile, the real-life Bob Dylan recently announced his initial batch of 2025 tour dates, featuring stops in smaller cities like Wichita, Kansas and Mankato, Minnesota. Tickets go on sale Friday, January 31st via Ticketmaster for the Minnesota show and AXS for dates in Wichita and Green Bay.