Where this was said
A Complete Unknown: Skepticism Turned to Joy
At 40:43 · chapter starts 39:40
When Jim Mangold approached Norton about A Complete Unknown, Norton's first instinct was skepticism bordering on snobbery: the Dylan mythology is sacred, the iconic figures unplayable, the whole project potentially inadvisable. Mangold cut through it by pointing out that there are 'a shit ton of people who don't know a thing about Bob Dylan,' and that the real subject of the film was a specific collision between young artists and their times — the willingness to lean in with everything they had. That argument landed. Joan Baez, Norton notes, famously said Dylan was the most apolitical person she ever knew — yet what he channeled was absolutely real. The project flipped from anxiety to joy because it gave Norton permission to marinate in folk music and Dylan's world — his version of getting to absorb and transmit.
