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Oscar Isaac admits he may have been wrong. He didn’t initially understand the casting of his “Dune: Part Two” co-star Timothée Chalamet as the great folk icon Bob Dylan in director James Mangold’s upcoming musical biopic “A Complete Unknown.”
According to Isaac, Chalamet was telling him and their fellow “Dune” actors Josh Brolin and Stephen McKinley Henderson about the project on the set of the epic sci-fi sequel — and Isaac, a devoted Dylan fan, had raised his eyebrow about the whole thing. Set in New York in the early 1960s, “A Complete Unknown” chronicles the early life and times of Dylan who arrived in Greenwich Village an enigmatic, freewheelin’ 19-year-old from Minnesota and forever changed the folk community.
“My first thought was… sounds like a really bad idea. I mean, it’s Dylan. It’s the holy of holies for me. It just didn’t sound right,” Isaac recalled at the Gotham Awards on Monday night. He presented Chalamet and Mangold with the Visionary Tribute. “Then, Timmy takes out his guitar. Not a good sign.”
Popular on Variety But Isaac, Brolin and Henderson were quickly won over after hearing Chalamet (who does his own singing in “A Complete Unknown”) perform a rendition Dylan’s 1963 hit “Girl From the North Country.”
“Josh, Stephen and I aren’t your average Timmy groupies. We’re grizzled movie vets; we’ve seen some shit,” Isaac continued. “But to hear this kid, who had just started learning the guitar, who hadn’t done much singing, and who wasn’t all that familiar with Dylan’s music, approach these songs not as if he was learning something new but remembering something he’d already known, just rediscovering… The three of us just sat there watching this young man connect with something mysterious.”
In his brief acceptance speech, Chalamet channeled Dylan, whom the actor described as a “man of few words.” He praised Isaac as someone “who I’ve tried to shape myself after” and proclaimed that “getting to study and immerse myself in the world of Bob Dylan has been the greatest education.”
Chalamet, Isaac, Colman Domingo, Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore and Zendaya were among the big stars who braved the cold to attend the 34th annual Gotham Awards at downtown New York’s Cipriani Wall Street. “A Different Man,” a dark comedy starring Sebastian Stan as an aspiring actor who undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance, won best feature. The film’s writer-director Aaron Schimberg appeared stunned to score the night’s top honor, telling the crowd that it would have taken “hubris to prepare a speech.” He apologized for not having more to say at the podium, admitting, “I didn’t see this as a possibility.”
The Gothams are considered the unofficial start to awards season, a months-long blitz that involves stops at the Golden Globes, multiple Guild Awards (there’s one for screen actors, writers, directors and producers), BAFTAs and Oscars. Winners at the Gothams don’t necessarily coincide with those other fetes because the voting bodies don’t overlap. Plus, awards hopefuls like Jon M. Chu’s big-budget “Wicked” adaptation, Ridley Scott’s action epic “Gladiator II” and “A Complete Unknown” didn’t submit, while films such as Pablo Larraín’s musical drama “Maria,” starring Jolie as famed opera singer Maria Callas, and Netflix’s genre-defying musical crime epic “Emilia Perez” were ineligible for best feature because they were foreign productions. Gothams used to enforce a budget cap of $35 million for eligible films, but that was removed in 2023 and wasn’t in place this year either.
Other top honors went to “Sing Sing” stars Colman Domingo for lead performance and Clarence Maclin for supporting performance, as well as “Nickel Boys” filmmaker RaMell Ross for best director. Several other tributes were bestowed to talent in the room, including but not limited to Denis Villeneuve (Director Award, “Dune: Part Two”), Angelina Jolie (Performer Award, “Maria”) and Zendaya (Spotlight Award, “Challengers”).
On stage, Villeneuve recounted a private conversation he had early in his career with Martin Scorsese, whom he turned to for advice while making the jump from arthouse fare like 2009’s drama “Polytechnique” to bigger, more commercial features like 2013’s thriller “Prisoners” and 2015’s “Sicario.” Villeneuve eventually went on to direct 2017’s acclaimed “Blade Runner 2049” as well as 2021’s “Dune” and this year’s blockbuster “Dune: Part Two.”
“When I went from the indie world to Hollywood, I asked the maestro for advice,” said Villeneuve, referring to the director of “Taxi Driver,” “Goodfellas” and “Mean Streets.” “He said, ‘The advice I’d give you is, “stay intact.” Protect the flame — that’s what he meant. In the indie world, you can have creative freedom and don’t [need to] compromise. I don’t know the value of what I’ve done in the past 12 years, but I’m proud I’ve protected my flame and kept intact my independent spirit.”
Vera Drew, the “The People’s Joker” filmmaker who won for breakthrough director, also celebrated the potentially revolutionary nature of arthouse cinema. Her queer coming-of-age comic book parody garnered headlines after getting axed from the 2023 Toronto Film Festival lineup due to copyright issues with the material. So, Drew thanked Warner Bros. (which owns DC Comics and holds the rights to the Batman universe but has never commented publicly on the film) for “not suing her.”
She also shouted out Nicole Kidman for her performance in Joel Schumacher’s 1995 comic book adaptation “Batman Forever,” in which the Oscar winner played Dr. Chase Meridian alongside Val Kilmer as the Caped Crusader. “When I was 6-year-old, I saw it in the theater,” Drew said. “It was probably the moment I realized I was trans.”
