Mick Jagger was on hand to present the Oscar for Best Original Song on Sunday evening. As he announced the winner (“El Mal” from Emilia Pérez), the musician quipped, “I’m greatly honored to be invited to give this award for the Best Original Song tonight, and much as I love doing it, I wasn’t the first choice to give this award out.”
He continued, “The producers wanted Bob Dylan to do it. Bob didn’t want to do it because he’s had the best songs this year, well, obviously, in the movie A Complete Unknown. Bob said, ‘You should find somebody younger.’ I said, ‘OK, I’m younger.’ So here I am.”
As it turns out, Dylan did actually turn down the chance to appear on the Oscars stage, both to present an award and to perform one of his songs. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dylan was invited by the Academy, but declined the offer.
The news explains why Dylan was the subject of two jokes during the ceremony, both from Jagger and from Oscars host Conan O’Brien. “To play Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet learned how to sing,” O’Brien said during his monologue. “In fact, the singing was so good he almost lost the part.” He added, “Dylan wanted to be here tonight, but not that badly.”
Chalamet was up for Best Actor for his performance as Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Although he lost to Adrian Brody for The Brutalist, Chalamet did recently take home the SAG Award. “I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is this was five and a half years of my life,” the actor acknowledged during his acceptance speech. “I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero. It was the honor of a lifetime playing him.”
Chalamet put a considerable amount of effort into playing Dylan in A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold. Dylan himself praised the film and the performance, writing on X, “Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”