Levi Dylan is the shy grandson of legendary folk singer Bob Dylan and the son of Wallflowers
frontman Jakob Dylan.
He's all grown up now and making a name for himself in the modeling world.
"I'm strong, like physically."
Levi Dylan has a talent for performing, but you probably won't see him adding to his family's
collection of Grammy Awards anytime soon.
He plays both guitar and bass, but he quit the family business soon after he started.
In 2017, he told Interview Magazine that he's always had an interest in performing and joined
a band called Dreamers Dose.
Though he claims that they were "really good," he ended up quitting after three short years
because, as he told VMan in 2017,
"Nobody wants to listen to rock and roll anymore."
We're hoping he didn't repeat this sentiment to his dad and granddad.
It seems like Dylan was just finding his footing as an adult and exploring his passion when
he decided to bow out of the music industry.
In an interview with The Daily Front Row, he claimed that he just lost motivation, but
it was fun while it lasted.
As he admitted,
"I stopped because I wasn't as interested as people thought I would be.
I just grew out of it.
The guys who I played with musically surpassed me and I stopped trying.
We finished off with a big show in around 2013 with like 2,500 people, which was cool.
I got a lot out of it, and I keep it with me."
Bob Dylan has notoriously shied away from the usual trappings of fame.
He didn't even show up in person to accept his Nobel Prize, which is just about the highest
honor a person can receive.
Instead, Patti Smith ended up performing his song "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" on his behalf.
Alas, it seems that, unlike another Bob Dylan song, the times are not a-changin', at least
not in the Dylan family.
A certain shyness runs in the clan's DNA that's made its way all the way down to Levi.
In a 2016 Teen Vogue profile, his girlfriend Alana O'Herlihy claimed,
"He doesn't talk a lot.
He is a shy, reserved and very private person, and that makes it all the more striking when
he does."
"The few words I would use to describe myself probably be that I'm a pretty private person,
I think."
Levi is so shy and quiet, in fact, that his musical talents rarely leave the privacy of
his own bedroom.
He told Interview Magazine that he plays guitar by his lonesome and always uses an acoustic
so that he doesn't bug his neighbors.
It wasn't terribly hard for Levi Dylan to find success as a model.
Since he made his runway debut in Dolce & Gabbana's Fall/Winter 2017 show, he's appeared in editorials
for various brands and starred in campaigns for UNIQLO and DKNY.
But by all accounts, it seems like he just sort of fell into the fashion industry thanks
to his photographer girlfriend Alana O'Herlihy.
As he put it in an interview with The Cut,
"She kind of set me up, and from there it was sort of like dominoes."
Despite his success, Dylan marches down the runway to his own drum and only takes on the
projects that he likes.
Most emerging models would probably jump at the chance to walk at fashion week, but he
hopes to avoid it entirely.
As he told The Daily Front Row in 2016,
"I don't think I'll ever do it again, but it was nice.
That walk is intense!
You'd be surprised; it's a skill.
Those guys are good at it, I was a little wobbly!
But I do what feels right for me.
A lot of it doesn't, and I don't have to do those things."
We suppose that's the privilege of having a grandfather with an estimated $200 million
net worth.
Bob Dylan is one of the most renowned protest singers in music history.
Levi is undoubtedly following in his grandfather's footsteps, though he approaches his activism
with a very mild manner.
For example, on the night after the 2016 presidential election, he joined a protest march from Union
Square to Trump Tower in New York City, but he ended up leaving early because the cars
were gridlocked and people were banging on the car windows.
As he told Interview Magazine,
"I thought it was rude.
I felt bad about that, and I left."
This wasn't the only time Levi took action against the Trump administration.
In a 2016 performance arts video, he appeared alongside his girlfriend and boldly proclaimed:
"It's disgusting.
Can you imagine?
Look at him.
Just look at him.
That's the guy representing our country.
Is that the face of America?
Is that what America's supposed to look like?"
Perhaps Levi's not quite as eloquent as his granddad, but there's no mistaking his point.
Though Levi Dylan rejected the touring lifestyle of his forebears, he's still drifting around
like a rolling stone.
He splits his time between his childhood hometown of Los Angeles and New York City.
And on top of that, it's not unusual for him to be jetsetting overseas for a modeling gig.
Speaking with The Daily Front Row in 2016, he revealed the surprising reason he goes
back and forth between the Big Apple and the City of Angels every couple of weeks, noting,
"As soon as I run out of money here, I go back to L.A. There's a lot of opportunity
in both places, and a lot of great people who want to help me.
I can use all the help I can get!"
It also appears that Levi is more comfortable in his hometown, where he still hangs out
with his friends from high school.
"What do you expect from your friends?"
"I expect them to be there for me at the end of the day."
When he's in New York, life is a little bit lonelier, as he mostly just hangs out with
his girlfriend.
As he told The Daily Front Row,
"I don't need anybody else.
We're both from L.A. I don't like going out with [New Yorkers] trying to tell me what
and where everything is.
I'd rather just find it myself, so we explore."
Dylan certainly looks like a supermodel, but whether or not he feels like one is up for
debate.
When he walked for Dolce & Gabbana during Milan Fashion Week in 2017, he felt out of
place, even though he was far from the only child of a celebrity featured at the show.
As he told VMan,
"The whole thing was really strange.
I don't even know how I fit into the whole thing.
My room was next to Cameron Dallas', and I had a really hard time sleeping.
Girls would stay outside his window from like 5 AM to 3 AM, take a two-hour break, then
come back for more."
This isn't the first time Dylan has expressed feeling like an outsider in the modeling industry,
as he told The Cut in 2016 that he actively avoids Fashion Week because he's not as tall
as most of the other models.
But thus far, it doesn't seem like his height has hurt his career anyway, as six feet is
plenty tall.
Maybe part of why he hasn't fully embraced the model lifestyle is because he isn't really
into high fashion all that much, which was apparent when he told The Daily Front Row,
"I like to go to thrift stores to find cool stuff that nobody else has.
I don’t know what people did in the clothing before I wore it though, sometimes I think
about that.
Everything else is too expensive."
Bob Dylan has a reputation for rejecting, or at least not fully embracing, a lot of
his success.
He never wanted to be pigeonholed into one musical movement, nor has he ever been comfortable
with the trappings of celebrity.
And it appears that his grandson feels much the same way.
In 2017, Levi Dylan told VMan,
"I get labeled as a model but, if I had it my way, I would hope nobody would ever call
me that."
Part of this could be because Levi doesn't actually see himself as a traditional model.
He certainly doesn't appear to be actively pursuing gigs, instead preferring to take
things as they come.
In 2016, he told The Daily Front Row,
"I'm not as tall as most models, and that's fine, but I might not fit into the criteria
as well as they do, so I don't make it a huge part of my life.
But when the opportunity presents itself, I find it interesting, and I like to do it."
Levi used to be represented by Next Model Management, though he's since signed with
the famed agency Wilhelmina.
It's safe to say that his success is no accident, regardless of whether or not he's actively
chasing the runway.
Dylan may be a successful model, but it looks like his heart is in Hollywood, just like
his mother, actress-screenwriter Paige Dylan.
As reported by VMan, as of 2017, he was transitioning from the music industry into an acting career.
At the time, he had a Netflix project and a movie in the works.
That film might've been the rock-fueled dramedy Mighty Oak, in which Dylan plays a singer
who dies in a car crash on the way to a gig.
The film was originally meant to be released in July 2019, but according to IMDb, it's
still in post-production.
He's also appeared in some music videos, including Steve Aoki and Moxie's "I Love It When You
Cry."
As of 2020, IMDb only lists two movies and a short under Dylan's acting credits, but
perhaps that's because he's choosing his projects carefully.
After all, he has no interest in fame for the sake of fame.
As he told VMan,
"I don't have any interest in being in Warner Brothers' newest comedy if it's going to suck
but still be a box office hit and make me famous.
I want to do things that are cool and that I can be proud of."
Dylan isn't limiting his involvement in film and TV to just acting, as he is also aiming
to be a producer.
He told Interview Magazine that he has an "eye for what looks good," which is probably
the most important quality in a good producer.
It certainly helps to hang around a photographer girlfriend and spend significant amounts of
time in a career rooted in aesthetics and expression.
Basically, he's well-trained in the art of making things look good, though that doesn't
speak to every aspect of his life.
On the topic of not always having the best eye, Dylan opened up to The Daily Front Row
about his collection of tattoos, revealing,
"I can't wait to get them off.
I'm hoping that at some point in the future I'll be able to walk into CVS and get tattoo
removal cream.
I think that's coming up, I really do, so I'm waiting for that."
Alas, it seems like tattoo removal cream technology just isn't there yet.
But it's not like most celebrity kids make it to adulthood without at least one regrettable
tattoo, so all that ink shouldn't put too much of a crimp on Dylan's Hollywood goals.
"I don't speak out of turn.
I don't know when it's my time to speak."
Fashion, film, and music aren't all that Levi Dylan has to offer, as he rounds out his artistic
skill set with painting.
When Interview Magazine profiled him in 2017, he admitted that he had already painted for
five hours that day, including a piece featuring a syringe going into a skull.
He also likes to draw faces, though his apartment in New York's East Village isn't really a
great place for a studio.
Instead, he tends to frequent Brooklyn, where you might just find one of his paintings if
you're walking around.
"What is your favorite hobby?"
"Favorite hobby is probably painting."
He leaves the majority of his works out for friends and strangers to find almost like
a modern Banksy, if Banksy had just graduated from art school.
Besides painting, one of Dylan's passions is visiting art galleries, particularly the
ones owned by his friends.
While he might have a favorite gallery, he does not have a favorite artist.
He told The Daily Front Row,
"People like Jackson Pollock and Damien Hirst are good, but I don't have a favorite artist.
I have white walls at home, which are very boring, so I bought a bunch of paint and started
painting things on them."
Considering his family lineage, we're not at all surprised this kid has been dabbling
in so many artistic mediums.
"What's your main flaw?"
"'Main flaw'?
I think, I think, um…I get too shy."
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