See Timothée Chalamet take Cape May as Bob Dylan with Elle Fanning in ‘A Complete Unknown’ (2024)

New Yorker Juliette Reilly was vacationing in Ocean City with her family Monday when she decided to visit Cape May.

Reilly, a singer, and her sister, Madeleine Reilly, found more than Victorian homes and ocean views.

They saw Timothée Chalamet ... as Bob Dylan.

“We’ve been huge fans of Timothée’s since ‘Lady Bird,’ but we had no idea he would be filming there,” Juliette Reilly, 30, tells NJ Advance Media.

Chalamet, 28, has been filming the movie “A Complete Unknown” in New Jersey since March. He plays a young Dylan in the film, a portrait of the music legend’s 1960s journey from teen folk enthusiast to superstar singer-songwriter.

The Oscar-nominated actor (”Call Me By Your Name”) and director James Mangold have been filming all over Jersey, with much of the production taking place in North Jersey.

The Cape May scenes depict the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, where Dylan first performed in public with an electric guitar that July, playing his then-new song “Like a Rolling Stone” (see video below). The song’s lyrics are the source of the film’s title. (”How does it feel? / To be without a home / Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”)

Dylan’s decision to go electric disturbed some in the folk music community.

See Timothée Chalamet filming ‘A Complete Unknown’ in Newark

Chalamet was filming in Cape May alongside co-star Elle Fanning (”The Great”), who plays a character inspired by Dylan’s former girlfriend, artist Suze Rotolo.

“We turned down a street and saw him and Elle moving backwards on the motorcycle,” Reilly says.

The motorcycle was rigged up so Chalamet wouldn’t have to do any actual driving.

Madeleine Reilly, 23, said he looked “exactly” like Dylan.

“The entire crew was so nice and letting the New Jersey Shore community take advantage of this rare opportunity,” Juliette Reilly says. “I’ve never been that close to a celebrity filming.”

She set a clip of the Chalamet sighting to The Foxies song “Timothée Chalamet” on her Instagram stories.

Earlier, the production had put out an open casting call for extras to work on “A Complete Unknown,” though a decoy name was given for the film. New Jersey locals were sought to serve as background actors in the 1965 music festival scenes in Cape May from May 12 to 16.

Sure enough, extras clad in ’60s attire filled the movie set as Cape May transformed into Cape Chala-May.

See Timothée Chalamet filming Bob Dylan movie in Hoboken as Chalamaniacs buzz around set

Chalamet fans and Jersey residents have spotted the actor on set in towns and cities including Hoboken, Newark, Jersey City, Mountainside, Plainfield and more.

Fanning, 26, an Emmy nominee, was previously seen filming in Paterson and Passaic with Chalamet.

Matt Parks said on X, formerly Twitter, that he was taking a morning stroll in Cape May when he saw Chalamet and Fanning on the motorcycle.

Brendan Duffy also shared a photo of a Newport Folk Festival ′65 banner and Chalamet filming.

“I wish I could have thanked him for ‘Dune,’” he said.

The Cape May coffee shop Coffee Tyme shared a video and photos of the production Monday on Facebook.

Bob Dylan himself is a producer of “A Complete Unknown” alongside Chalamet and Mangold.

Monica Barbaro (”Top Gun: Maverick”) plays Joan Baez, the folk singer who also had a relationship with Dylan. Three-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton plays fellow folk singer Pete Seeger.

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup.