In the next six months, Timothée Chalamet stars in two major blockbusters—first as the titular chocolatier in Wonka this December, and then a return to Arrakis for Dune: Part Two, which has been delayed to March 2024 amid the ongoing actors strike. But in a GQ interview completed prior to the strikes, Chalamet couldn’t help but look ahead to his next major role—as Bob Dylan.

These days, Chalamet tells GQ he’s been “Dylan-ing hard” in preparation for A Complete Unknown, a biopic of the musician to be directed by Walk the Line’s James Mangold. His process reportedly includes rereading Dylan’s 2004 memoir Chronicles and training with a team snagged from Elvis star Austin Butler, with whom he stars in Dune: Part Two. The pair first met on Zoom for a cast reading, where Chalamet confirmed to GQ that Butler was no longer doing the Elvis voice that helped lead him to an Oscar nomination. “No, here’s the thing, he was already talking like Stellan Skarsgård,” Chalamet said of Butler’s character Feyd-Rautha, son of Skarsgård’s Baron Harkonnen. “I can’t overstate how inspiring it was to me personally.”

Chalamet continued to praise Butler’s dedication, telling GQ, “Because here was someone who’s a little older than me, but generationally we’re similar, and I don’t know how he would put it, but his journey was different than mine. But he takes the work incredibly seriously. And I feel like I hadn’t seen that among someone my age, whether it was in drama school or on set, that did take the work that seriously but then after ‘cut’ wasn’t, you know, in some show of how seriously they took it—and instead is this tremendously affable, wonderful man.”

Chalamet enlisted Butler’s various coaches—Eric Vetro for vocal, Tim Monich for dialect, and Polly Bennett for movement—for his own preparation. “I’ve basically been working with his entire Elvis team for my Dylan prep,” Chalamet told GQ. “I just saw the way he committed to it all—and realized I needed to step it up.” The actor said he has yet to meet the 82-year-old Dylan, but is open to the opportunity. “I didn’t want to three years ago, because I just didn’t want to for superstitious reasons,” Chalamet said. “Now I would love to.”

The 27-year-old has also been sourcing inspiration from all over Hollywood, including Tom Cruise, who sent him “the most wonderfully inspiring email” after he wrapped 2021’s Dune, which included a laundry list of experts he could employ, including a stunt trainer and helicopter coach. “He basically said, in Old Hollywood, you would be getting dance training and fight training, and nobody is going to hold you to that standard today. So it’s up to you. The email was really like a war cry,” Chalamet told GQ. He then revealed that he’d seen Top Gun: Maverick eight times in theaters, before calling it “one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen.”

But it’s the emerging generation of actors who are providing Chalamet the greatest sense of industry camaraderie. “I feel like for a while there, it was really just older people in the room around me,” he said. “People I love but just, generationally above. And there was a moment when I—I don’t want this to come across wrong, but I felt like I was without peers.” That changed with Dune: Part Two, in which Chalamet stars alongside Butler, Florence Pugh, and Zendaya. “It was so incredibly valuable to spend so much time with Zendaya and her assistant, Darnell [Appling], and when Tom [Holland] would come to set too,” Chalamet said of Zendaya’s longtime boyfriend. “They’re level. They’re good Hollywood. They’re good-energy Hollywood. And then Austin and Florence. I feel like I’m creating a community for myself of people who care about the right things.”