They say good things come to those who wait. For James Mangold, Timothee Chalamet, and the cast of the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” that appears to be the case. Mangold and his leading man spent years working on this project before filming finally began, but they weren’t the only ones. Due to the guild strikes, Elle Fanning waited six months after casting, wondering if the movie would ever happen. Not only did it come to pass, but this month, she was recognized with the National Board of Review’s Best Supporting Actress honor.
READ MORE: “A Complete Unknown” Review: Timothée Chalamet electrifies in superb, punk-rock-spirited Bob Dylan drama
The Searchlight Pictures release centers on just an early period of Dylan’s career between his arrival in New York City in 1961 and his “controversial” performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. One of the first people he met in the city was Suze Rotolo, an artist and political activist in Greenwich Village. Dylan asked Mangold to change Rotolo’s name in the movie (she never wanted to be a public figure), but Fanning had a treasure trove of reference material to portray her.
“She has a little Queen’s accent, so there’s a little lilt, a little texture of New York, and I’m a southern girl. So, I had to knock that out of me for this,” Fanning admits. “But at the end of the day, I mean, you can learn facts upon facts about someone, but I realized kind of the purpose that I needed to serve in this particular story that Jim was telling. And so then your script does become your Bible for that. But I couldn’t rely on singing or playing an instrument. She didn’t do that. That’s not what their relationship was based on or about. So, it’s really about bringing the emotional depth and her inner life, wanting the audience to get to know her because she’s she’s unknown. She is one of the unknown figures in the movie.”
During our interview, Fanning reflects on one of the greatest auditions of her career for a Mangold movie that didn’t happen, why her character may be so willing to protect Dylan’s past, and much more.
Note: Historical events depicted in the film are discussed in this interview.
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The Playlist: Congratulations on the movie. and on the NBR award as well.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I was reading up on this, and you were announced as being part of this movie in May of 2023. The movie didn’t shoot because of the strikes for another eight months or so.
it’s true.
And I know that Timothy and James had gone through so much wondering if this movie was ever going to happen. Were you also wondering, “Are we actually going to make this movie”?
I was a little bit, I have to say because when Jim told me that there would be a part for me, I was so excited for this movie on so many different levels because Jim and I were supposed to work on a film years ago when I was around 19, maybe 18, 19. And then that film didn’t end up working out, but we had always stayed in touch. And I remember I went in and auditioned for him for that particular part, and I hate auditions, and it was the most amazing audition I had ever had. And he actually read the scenes with me, and it was so comfortable and just, it really left a mark on me always. And obviously, I’m a huge fan of all of James’s movies. He truly can do anything. And then Timothee and I had worked together before, so we were friends. And so, as a fan on the sidelines, I was so excited to watch this film as a viewer. And then to hear that I was going to be able to be a part of it was just another level of huge excitement. But then, of course, we had a couple of setbacks with things. So, there is always a little bit of worry that not everyone’s going to be available or it’s not going to line up exactly. But I always kept it open. There was no way that I wasn’t going to try to be a part of this film if I could. I also was a huge Bob Dylan fan growing up. So, in a lot of ways, I felt like, I don’t know, it felt like destiny, like a manifestation of getting this role in many ways.
I believe that Sylvie is a composite of several women that Bob dated.
Ish. No. Yeah, not really. She really is based on Suze Rotolo, and that is the one, I mean, obviously Suze’s with him in Newport in ’65, but there’s a lot of things in the movie that dates are played around with and to make it a film and make it cinematic. And Bob, we haven’t met him, but he was involved in the script and talked with Jim a lot. And one of the main things that he wanted done was he wanted Suze’s name changed in the script. He personally wanted her name to be Sylvie, or her name at least changed in the movie, because he felt like she was a very precious person for him in his life, but she’s since passed. And, as we touch on in the movie, she never wanted to be a public figure. She was very private, and that’s not the life she wanted. And so he felt like to honor her, he wanted to keep that part safe. And I actually think that it’s so lovely. It is a beautiful thing, but it was subconsciously on my mind. That was one of Bob’s requests. It added a little more weight, I don’t know, every day knowing that if he ever saw this film, I felt like I wanted to portray their relationship and capture that essence that they had. She was very important to him.
She didn’t want to be a public figure but you can find interviews with her online discussing her relationship with Dylan. Were those good reference points?
Yes. I mean, she wrote a beautiful memoir called “A Freewheeling Time.” That’s a lot about her time with Bob in the sixties in the West Village, and then moving into their apartment together and talking about how her sister hated Bob and her mother hated Bob back in the day. And little tidbits. He bought her this vintage fur coat. And so [costume designer] Arianne [Phillips] and I wear kind of a similar coat in the film, and arguments they had even are very much kind of lifted out of those stories for the movie. I mean, honestly, in a way, that relationship is kind of the most accurate to what it was. So, I read the memoir, and there’s a lot of photos of her and with Bob and them lounging in their apartment, and you can kind of see their playfulness. And just, she’s an artist in her own. She was very politically involved and brought Dylan into the politics. He wasn’t actually so interested in the political world until he met her. And so yeah, of course, I listened to some interviews that she had on YouTube when she was older, recounting those times.
But she has a little Queen’s accent, so there’s a little lilt, a little texture of New York, and I’m a southern girl. So, I had to knock that out of me for this. But at the end of the day, I mean, you can learn facts upon facts about someone, but I realized kind of the purpose that I needed to serve in this particular story that Jim was telling. And so then your script does become your Bible for that. But I couldn’t rely on singing or playing an instrument. She didn’t do that. That’s not what their relationship was based on or about. So, it’s really about bringing the emotional depth and her inner life, wanting the audience to get to know her because she’s she’s unknown. She is one of the unknown figures in the movie. So I didn’t have as much to rely on of things that were public.
One of the things I found most fascinating about her character is that she, unlike Joan Baez’s character, sort of helps Bob hide his past. There’s that moment during a party in their apartment, and one of their friends has seen a photo album of old photos of him. Sylvie flips it over. Why do you think she’s helping keep up this mystery about his past?
Well, I think that’s complicated because I think that she actually doesn’t want him to be so secretive about his past. I think maybe in that moment that you’re talking about…
She embarrassed?
Embarrassed. Yeah. I think it’s more of an embarrassment that she doesn’t know more. I think the whole movie, she’s wanting more. She’s not wanting him to be a mysterious minstrel, as she says. She wants him to be giving and open and be able to explain himself. And that’s what she’s hoping for. And what’s kind of so heartbreaking by the end is he’s never going to do that. And also, as we know Bob Dylan now, that’s what makes him extraordinary is that he is mysterious, and we don’t know his past. And that makes him an incredible artist. And I love that about him. But she’s the one person that you get to see who is very close to him, and how hard it must be to be so close to someone who is that mysterious and to be so close to an artist in that way. And I think she, over the course of the film, you see her trying a lot of the time of putting on a happy and brave face and feeling like maybe this love is greater and I can overcome this and I can be cool and be okay with it and know that he’s sleeping with Joan. But I’ll be the supportive one in the background. But finally, kind of at that fence scene. I call it the fence scene at the end when we’re saying goodbye, that’s my favorite scene that I got to do.
Why is that your favorite scene?
Well, on the page, it reads so beautifully. The fence is not on the page. That is something that Jim told Timmy and me that he was going to shoot it through a fence. And we were like, “Gosh, the metaphor of that is so perfect for this scene.” And it feels like a very iconic old Hollywood breakup cinematic scene. And I think it’s moving because she’s the last person who knew him before he became who he’s about to become. She knows him as the guy from Minnesota with the cap and looking on the other side of the fence like, “God, he’s changed.” He was in the skinny jeans and the fluffy hair, and he’s not that person anymore. And so just capturing kind of the heartbreak and realization of having to let someone go, I think, was important. And I love the callback to the “Now, Voyager” movie that we watch on our date with the cigarettes and Betty Davis. It stood out to me. And the line that I say about feeling like on “The Ed Sullivan Show” with the moving plates, those are lines and films that, as an actor, you kind of dream of saying, you’re like, “God, this is such a well-written line.” And it really sums my entire character up. So you feel the gravity and the importance when you’re filming a scene like that on the day, and yeah.
“A Complete Unknown” opens nationwide on Dec 25.
