Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Sherlock Holmes on the crime drama Sherlock. Photo: PBS Masterpiece

From the Department of If I Didn’t Before, Now I Truly Believe Benedict Cumberbatch Can Do Anything, comes news out of the Cannes Film Festival that the former Sherlock (and most everything else on Planet Earth) star will portray folk legend Pete Seeger in an upcoming Bob Dylan biopic. It was Seeger who had an enormous impact on the young Dylan, from helping him land a record contract to furthering his activism to inviting him to play at Newport Folk Festival.

Directed by James Mangold (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), A Complete Unknown will star Timothée Chalamet (Homeland, Dune, Wonka) in the title role of a young Bob Dylan with Top Gun: Maverick’s Monica Barbaro playing Joan Baez. No news as to who will play the then-hospitalized Woody Guthrie or others in the folk scene of New York.

“It’s such an amazing time in American culture and the story of a young, 19-year-old Bob Dylan coming to New York with like two dollars in his pocket and becoming a worldwide sensation within three years,” Mangold previously told Collider. “First being embraced into the family of folk music in New York and then, of course, kind of outrunning them at a certain point as his star rises so beyond belief. It’s such an interesting true story and about such an interesting moment in the American scene.”

Based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric, Chalamet will provide his own vocals to Dylan’s music with filming on A Complete Unknown beginning in August.