Edward Norton had hesitations when accepting role in Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown

22 January 2025, 10:09

Edward Norton on the new Bob Dylan biopic

The Hollywood actor portrays American singer-songwriter and musician Pete Seeger in the Bob Dylan biopic, which is out now.

Edward Norton was scared to appear in A Complete Unknown.

The Bob Dylan biopic, which is available in cinemas now, sees Timothée Chalamet play the legendary singer-songwriter, while Norton plays his mentor and idol Pete Seeger.

Asked if it took much convincing for him to take the role on, the actor told The Chris Moyles Show: "No. Dylan and that period in the early '60s in the village had a very... It was a big part of my mythological, you know. When I moved to New York, when I was in my early 20s I was very aware of that whole period and that history andI loved all that music."

He went on: "You know it's funny, even in the '90s if you came up as a young 'wannabe' artist in New York, you were aware of Pete Seeger, because it didn't even matter if you were into folk music. Pete Seeger was the Gandalf of artist activists, because he was sort of one of the elder statesmen of the idea of artists who campaign and get involved, so he was a figure in all of our lives."

"I think I had my hesitations only because it was too precious to me," Norton admitted. "And you sort of say 'Bob [Dylan],' How do you do that?

"And our director, he was a very good shrink, because playing famous people, it's not easy. It's a bit of a minefield. [...] But there were two things that [director] Jim [James Mangold] said that I thought were really liberating. One of them was he said 'We're sort of making a fable. We're not making a Wikipdia page as a film. We want to evoke the spirit of these people, but the other thing he said is don't forget that quite a lot of people don't know this music. They don't know who Dylan is, let alone Pete Seeger and this is a way to re-engage people with what was sort of special and inspiring about that time and those people".

Watch the trailer for A Complete Unknown, which is out now:

A Complete Unknown – Bob Dylan biopic official trailer

A Complete Unknown is available to watch in cinemas now.

Read more:

• Bob Dylan's most important protest songs
• Bob Dylan hails Timotheé Chalamet as "a brilliant actor" ahead of A Complete Unknown biopic release