Timothee Chalamet surprised viewers of Saturday Night Live over the weekend by performing no less than three Bob Dylan numbers on the song. But rather than songs from the A Complete Unknown film, the actor chose three deep cuts, one of which only the committed Dylan fans out there would recognise.
Chalamet signalled that he was going to avoid the obvious choices in his opening monologue as host for the night: “You might not know the Bob Dylan songs I’m performing, but they’re my personal favourites,” he told viewers. “I’m so grateful Saturday Night Live is still doing weird stuff like this 50 years in. They’re either really nice for letting me do this or incredibly mean and this is all a big prank.”
Anyway, Chalamet later took to the stage wearing shades and a furry hoodie and proceeded to play a medley of Outlaw Blues from Dylan’s 1965 Bringing It All Back Home album and Three Angels, an album cut from 1970’s New Morning. Interestingly, he chose to perform in his own voice – this certainly wasn’t a Dylan impersonation, nor the character that Chalamet plays in A Complete Unknown.
He returned to close the show with Tomorrow Is A Long Time. Another more obscure song, it was first played live by Dylan in the early 60s and although other artists recorded it, including Elvis Presley and Judy Collins, Dylan himself never committed it to tape until the 1970s.
Chalamet was joined on all three numbers by James Blake on keys. The British singer/ producer later took to Instagram and wrote: “Surreal and fun to play Saturday Night Live with Bob Dylan... I mean Timothee Chalamet. Congrats to Timmy on everything. Nobody deserves it more.”
In his opening monologue Chalamet said it was strange going straight from playing Willy Wonka to Dylan, though the two characters have a lot in common: “both eccentric, both innovators, and they both captured and enslaved hundreds of Oompa Loompas.” And proving he doesn’t take himself too seriously, he played footage from award ceremonies that focused in on his disappointed face moments after he’d been passed over for a major gong.
A Complete Unknown is nominated for eight awards at the Oscars in March including Chalamet himself for Best Actor, James Mangold in the Best Director category and Edward Norton as Best Supporting Director.
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