Side stage to history: local man cast as extra for Newport Folk Fest scenes in new Bob Dylan film
By Helena Touhey
Doug Key plays a festival musician backstage during the 1964 and 1965 Newport Folk Festival scenes in “A Complete Unknown” starring Timothée Chalamet
Doug Key relived local – and legendary – history as an extra on the set of “A Complete Unknown,” the new Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet as the man, the myth, and the folk legend who notoriously went electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Cast as “Folk Fest Musician No. 1,” Key was side stage for the 1964 and 1965 festival scenes, which recreated Dylan’s festival appearances.
The movie begins in 1961, when Dylan arrives in New York as a vagabond musician, and chronicles his rise to fame after meeting Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), his connection with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), and his relationship with Suze Rotolo, in the film fictionalized as Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning).
The film ends soon after the 1965 festival, where Dylan was famously booed off stage (songs from that set included “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone”).
Key was there, in the wings of the stage, 12-15 hours a day for two weeks, taking in set after set while portraying a musician who might be about to go on stage at any moment. He’s especially visible during the 1965 festival scenes, when he’s leaning on a banister backstage in a brown striped shirt, at times behind Edward Norton and Elle Fanning.
“We got a free Bob Dylan concert,” Key jokes, noting the people cast as festivalgoers were feeding off Chalamet’s energy, making the experience feel like an actual concert – an energy which is captured in the film, where Chalamet performs live, in real time. “It sounded great,” he says of the music.
Chalamet has said in interviews that he spent five years practicing guitar and harmonica in preparation for portraying Dylan on screen and learned how to play 30 songs.
At one point, Key recalls, when Chalamet took the stage as Dylan during a 1964 scene and announced a new song – “The Times They Are a-Changin’” – everyone in the audience started to sing along. The director had to come out and remind people they weren’t supposed to know the lyrics yet, and to wait a few stanzas before joining in.
“I hope people appreciate the live performances as they were filmed,” Key adds, “this set was phenomenal.” He notes that Chalamet played every song from start to finish, as did Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash.
Others were cast as Peter, Paul and Mary, as well as Odetta, and even if they didn’t have prominent roles, Key considers them “easter eggs” for fans. “There were look-alikes walking around that real die-hard folk fans will know,” he says.
Photos taken in theater courtesy of Doug Key
Highlights of the experience included interacting with the stars, many of whom were backstage during the festival scenes.
He recalls telling Chalamet, “Hey man, you’re doing a great job,” to which Chalamet responded, “super-cool, super-cool” in what Key describes as his “Timmy cool-guy voice.”
On another occasion, Edward Norton, who Key describes as “a cinematic hero of mine,” told Key: “I’m going to pretend your Phil Ochs,” a folk musician who would have been at the original festivals.
Other highlights were the props, like old cars labeled Newport Police, stands with festival merch, poster recreations, and a brochure that was made to reflect the original lineup.
This was not Key’s first time as a movie extra – he was also on set for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Bridge of Spies, and The Irishman, among others – but it is the first time he’s been featured so prominently on screen, so much so that friends have been sending him pictures from the theater, sharing in Key’s excitement (Key is also a comedian and founder of the local Rogue Island Comedy Fest).
Set photos courtesy of Doug Key
“I had a front row seat to this filming,” says Key, “it was pretty historic watching this go down.”
“People on set knew me as the guy who was from Newport,” he adds, explaining that not everyone knew about the Newport Folk Festival, which many locals consider a highlight of summer. Still, even Key was unaware that the festival, now held at Fort Adams State Park, along with the Newport Jazz Festival, was once held at Festival Fields (Fun fact: last summer, Jazz Fest celebrated its 70th installment, and Folk Fest its 65th).
In 1964 and 1965, the festival was held in Newport’s North End, in a grassy area that came to be known as Festival Fields and which today hosts a housing complex bearing the same name, a Walmart, and nearby Newport Craft, where a plaque commemorates the historic music moment.
For the movie, the festival scenes were filmed in Union County, New Jersey, in Mountainside’s Echo Lake Park, in spring 2024. Other Newport scenes were filmed in Monmouth County and Cape May County, New Jersey.
All in all, the film is “an interpretation of that time,” says Key, adding that, “for a guy like Bob Dylan, who’s such a mystery… it’s an interpretation he would appreciate.”
Much of the festival scenes are inspired by Elijah Wald’s 2015 book “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties.” (Also, in a nod to the craze around the movie, Newport Folk Fest recently posted photos taken of Dylan at the festival in 1965; this summer will mark 60 years since he went electric.)
Key thinks the film will introduce Dylan’s music – and expansive catalogue – to a new generation.
In fact, The Jane Pickens Film & Event Center, which hosted a Rhode Island premiere of the film on Dec. 21 (an event that sold out), a few days before the national release, is hosting local singer-songwriter Avi Jacob for live music ahead of a screening on Thursday, Jan. 16. Recently, the theater announced via a newsletter that “A Complete Unknown” has been the biggest two week opening of a film it’s ever had, “with new fans converted daily and plenty of repeat viewers,” adding: “there’s such a special synergy seeing this Bob Dylan biopic at the JPT.”
For Key, the local element is an important one. “I can look back and say I’m in cinema history,” he says, reliving a moment about one of the “greatest musicians of all time, in my hometown.”
In other news, Key will host a comedy show on Valentine’s Day at Ragged Island Brewery in Portsmouth. More info and tickets here!
