Yahoo Lifestyle ‘A Complete Unknown’s Monica Barbaro On Finally Meeting The “Thoughtful And Wonderful” Joan Baez And A Sweet Moment With Ariana Grande
Last week, Monica Barbaro met Joan Baez in person for the first time. For Barbaro, this was a big step in an extraordinary journey that first began in 2020, back when Barbaro couldn’t play guitar at all, but sang at her audition to play Baez in James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. Fast-forward five years, and Barbaro has successfully, and beautifully, embodied Baez’s story and performed her music—with the Oscar and SAG nominations to prove it.
She’d spoken with Baez on the phone before, right before shooting a scene where she would perform “Blowin’ in the Wind” opposite Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. But now, at last, the two women have met at Baez’s San Francisco concert on February 8th. Here, as she wraps up shooting on Bart Layton’s new heist movie Crime 101, in which she stars alongside Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Hemsworth and Barry Keoghan, Barbaro reveals her experience of playing, and then meeting, a musical icon, and how Mangold, Chalamet, and Baez herself fed her performance.
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DEADLINE: Last time we spoke it was Oscar nominations day. You were in London shooting Crime 101. And you’d been to Denmark Street guitar shopping. How was the rest of that shoot? Or are you not done?
MONICA BARBARO: I have two more days because there was something that happened that sort of derailed the schedule a little bit, not me related. That happens. So now it’s kind of perfect in timing with the BAFTAs. So, I’m going to New York tomorrow and then to London on Saturday. BAFTAs are on Sunday. And then I’ve got two more days shooting and then maybe a couple meetings and then I’m back to LA
DEADLINE: For the SAG Awards and the Oscars! You’ve been to the Oscars before with Top Gun Maverick, but now you’re personally nominated in Supporting Actress. How are you feeling about it all?
BARBARO: I’m so excited. It has its overwhelming moments, for sure. And I was just with a bunch of the other nominees in Santa Barbara last night, and the best thing about all of this—it’s really the most wholesome thing about awards—is that it really is just people in a room telling each other how much they love each other’s work. Or at least that’s been my experience of it. And there are a lot of first-time nominees this time around, and I think a lot of first-time attendees of the Oscars. So, I feel confident that I’ve been before, so at least I’ve seen it. And we all just get to share in the kind of madness of it.
It’s like the ultimate event, but it also is the last event. I think there’s something about that that is just really freeing. I remember that with the Everything Everywhere All at Once group, they were giving perfect speeches at every award show that they just swept, which was all of them. They were so happy, but there was also… I feel like there was a relief there too in that like, OK, we’ve done it, we’ve crossed over, we’ve done the thing. And I’m sensing with this group that there will be lots of feelings on that day, but there will be a sense of celebratory relief too. I make it sound like it’s a bad thing. It’s incredible.
DEADLINE: It’s a long road. What I like about this particular period, is that you see the same people at all the LA events and by now, everybody knows each other from all the different films.
BARBARO: It’s so nice. I never really expected that. That was something I didn’t know about beforehand. And that’s what happened when we were running around with Top Gun. I remember getting to chat with Kerry Condon a bunch. And just a lot of different people. And like I said, the Everything Everywhere guys. That’s so cool. It becomes kind of your little community. And I think this year especially, there are so many such talented women who also have really big hearts and who’ve been working for a really long time, whether they’ve been in the music industry or whether they’ve been doing great films for a long time, or TV kind of unnoticed. Everyone has been in it for a long time, giving it their all, and they’re having this hugely well-deserved moment, but also navigating the immensity of that in their lives. And it just feels like the perfect space to get to bond with a bunch of like-minded, cool women.
DEADLINE: Have you had a favorite conversational run-in with you’ve been in in awe of, or someone that gave you the most amazing compliment? Has there been an instant of “I’m going to treasure this moment forever?”
BARBARO: Constantly, yeah. I mean, even Glenn Close just making eye contact with me and pointing at me, telling me she liked my performance. I think I ran away. I don’t think I gave her any clues as to how big of a deal that was to me. That was at the Golden Globes. But in Santa Barbara, we just had the funniest moment. I was trying to fix Ariana Grande’s dress, and then as I was fixing her dress to go out for this last thing that we were doing, my button in the back of my dress popped, and then she took out a bobby pin and was fixing the back of my dress. And I think those are the moments that really just feel like the things you’ll never forget, because that’s so strange and specific and so, I think, indicative of our personalities, and also just, I think, the way in which we’re all just rooting for each other. And it goes beyond that. I mean, of course we’ve said beautiful things about each other’s work and we all were just sitting backstage watching each other’s interviews, and watching each other’s clips, and just melting at the sight of each other’s work, but at the same time, it’s those friendly, silly moments that I think really stick with you later, that familiarity that you don’t expect to have with people you admire so much.
DEADLINE: It’s such sisterhood, isn’t it? Like being in the bathroom with the girls and fixing your makeup. So, I know last time we spoke you were planning to see Joan’s concert, and that’s happened now. Did you get to chat? How was the experience of seeing her perform?
BARBARO: It was incredible. It was a beautiful concert. I think the audience felt very held and seen. I think politically it’s a very trying time, and there was a lot of really beautiful, outspoken moments in the evening. I got very emotional when she walked out on stage and was dancing. She just had this very free spirit where she would just come out and harmonize a little bit and leave, and she seemed so free and so happy in her body. It’s just wild to be in the same room with her.
And then yeah, then I got to meet her after, backstage. And we just had a lovely brief chat. I was surprised by how able she was in that moment, at the height of this performance and everything, how able she was to receive me and understand that I was tired. She was like, “When do you really land?” And she was just really thoughtful and wonderful. Also, by the way, her singing voice is still absolutely beautiful. She sang “Diamonds and Rust”. She just completely blew me away. I’m so grateful that in my lifetime I can say that I’ve heard Joan sing live. Getting to meet her was incredible, but to have also seen that was just life-changing, mind-blowing. I can’t think of the proper words.
DEADLINE: Life-changing and mind-blowing covers it. And she had already told the Marin Independent Journal that she loved your performance. What did that mean to you when you heard that? She said you got her gestures down perfect. That’s got to feel amazing.
BARBARO: Yeah. That was wonderful to read. She had shared that in a way with me prior to that… So, she had given me the gift of positive feedback earlier, and I didn’t want to [reveal her words publicly]. I was sort of released from that fear prior to her saying it publicly, and I never had any expectation that she would say it publicly. But of course, her doing that was just a huge gift to me and to the film itself, because I know a lot of people really wanted her to weigh in and wanted her opinion. But of course, you have to be so careful, because anything can become a headline so quickly and any opinion can just take on a life of its own. So yeah, when she shared that, I felt just very honored.
DEADLINE: I know you’ve talked before about the role and the intense research you did, but I’m curious about your audition back in 2020. What sing did you sing?
BARBARO: Well, there was a scene that included… It was kind of a three-parter. It included the intro, you get to Joan in the movie where she has the conversation with Albert Grossman in the dressing room, and then she’s singing “House of the Rising Sun”. And then there was a little bit more of a scene after, more dialogue with another character that didn’t wind up in the final script. That was a scene. And then it was like, choose your own song. And so the scene part with “House of the Rising Sun”, I had to do in the room and sing in the room. And then in terms of what I chose, I chose “There but for Fortune” to sing as the whole song, at home, self-tape style. And that was for two reasons: One, I really loved the song. I think the guitar is one of the more special guitar accompaniments I’ve ever heard, though I couldn’t play at the time.
DEADLINE: Could you play at all? Even roughly?
BARBARO: No I was just singing. I knew someone who knew a guitarist, and so I had a recording to accompany me. But no, I didn’t play guitar. And I remember thinking, that’d be so cool, if I got this part, I’d learn how to play that song. And now I can actually play the song, which is just kind of crazy to me.
But the other reason I sang “There but for Fortune” is because it wasn’t a song she sang in quite as high of a register as the other songs. I had to take the “House of the Rising Sun” down a step, I think, in order to be able to sing it, to hit those notes. And I was worried that would be a knock against me or something and it turns out Jim [Mangold] couldn’t care less [about that specific change]. But “There but for Fortune” was in the vocal range that was attainable to me, so I sang that.
DEADLINE: I wanted to ask you about Jim, actually. Could you speak to some of the ways he’s supported you in taking on this challenge—someone who is a real person, who’s alive, who’s going to see what you do, and playing music—I mean, it’s enormous. What were some of the ways that he talked you through how he wanted you to approach it and how he supported you?
BARBARO: Yeah. Well, it’s funny. He has such a booming voice and strong opinions. He can also be quite terrifying. And that’s, I think, such an interesting thing about him, is the set dynamic with him is an intense one, and he has really high standards and a really excellent taste level, so you trust him completely. But those are intense sets. And yet we all walk away with this feeling of complete support from him, not just because we trust his taste level, but because he also will yell at you to advocate for yourself. And as an actor, I really needed that. I’m a person who tends to feel like I need permission to do anything, to have a voice. I’m not sure I give off that impression all the time, but I know internally, it feels like just an uphill battle to speak up for myself. I get really shy about it. And also, I want set to run efficiently, and you never want to be that actor that’s slowing things down or getting in the way. And he was just very encouraging of me taking up space and trusting my instincts.We talked a lot about that. He was like, “I can see an impulse coming and then you deciding whether to take it and run with it or not.” And he’s like, “Just do.” And I appreciated that so much… He would catch me at doing that before I even recognized it myself. I could tell he just wasn’t interested in convenience for convenience sake, and I think that just makes him so special. And the way he advocates for actors and the way he values… I think that’s why so many actors, their performances in his films are some of their best in their careers.
DEADLINE: I found this story of Joan so inspiring because she just has this mettle. She does suffer fools. And I wonder if she had a lingering effect on you just as a woman. Did she leave you with anything? Was she inspiring to you personally?
BARBARO: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I’m a bit like that. My grandpa used to always make me say at the end of conversations, he’d say, “What do I always say?” And I’d have to say back to him, “Don’t take no sh-t from nobody.” So I think that’s kind of in me. And I think that’s something that we had in common. As fearful as I get of stepping on toes on set and as afraid I am of p–sing anyone off or wasting anyone’s time, I do have that spirit within me, for sure.
But I think of something so lovely that she said in a New Yorker article interview while I was working on this film that had to do with perfectionism, because she released a book of her drawings and poetry. I got to find the actual quotes, but something to the effect of, “You can’t try to make a drawing too perfect.” And I apply this to all art. She’s like, “You can’t try to make it too perfect, because when you do that, you rob it of what makes it interesting, what makes it human.” And that was so helpful for me to hear while I was doing this particular project and working on her, because I was trying to get the sound of her so perfect and the look and the feel and all of these things. I was trying to be perfect. And at the core of her is this fascinating person, this free spirit, maybe sometimes hindered by anxieties, or maybe often so, but there was nothing uninteresting about her. And the more you try to perfect something, the less interesting it gets. And I’ve seen that in my own art a lot. The more I try to narrow in on what makes it exact, the less life it has in it. You sort of squeeze the life out of it.
DEADLINE: Tell me about working with Timothée. What was a particularly memorable scene with him and you were really vibing and just really bouncing off each other?
BARBARO: There were a couple moments. Actually, the first thing that we shot together was the Pittsburgh concert, where we’re at odds and he was improvising. I remember when I went into ADR for the film, Jim showed me that scene, and I didn’t remember either of us saying any of those things that we say, because he was just improvising. And we had incredible background artists who were contributing. They were yelling, they were booing, they were cheering me when I was trying to play “Blowin’ in the Wind” for them. And it just felt really real and very sticky and uncomfortable and just kind of awful in that way that it’s supposed to.And it was really cool because this was our first thing together, and I just saw so clearly that he was just completely in the zone and completely understood these rants that Bob might go on. And I felt like I so understood how Joan would potentially respond and how she would try to stay professional and continue the concert without him, and the sh-t she’d give him for being crazy, but also in her own sort of imaginative, funky way. And so that was a really cool kickoff for us.
The other one I would say would be when we shot the “It Ain’t Me Babe” scene, and we were so lucky to have Elle [Fanning] there as an anchor and to have her point of view in that scene and the way she portrays it so beautifully. It’s such a charged moment between the two of them. And again, we didn’t have to talk about any of it. We really didn’t talk about any of these scenes together. We just did them. Honestly, the less we talked about the scenes, the better they went. And yeah, we got a few takes.
DEADLINE: You had to wear fake teeth too. How was that decided on and how did you work with it? Was it difficult or did it add something for you?
BARBARO: Oh, it added so much for me. I will say a shout-out to Art [prosthetics designer, Yoichi Art Sakamoto], who is the designer behind the teeth. Some of his major claims to fame are Charlize Theron’s teeth in Monster and Will Smith’s teeth in King Richard. Amongst many other sets of teeth. And he is brilliant. He’s meticulous and such a talented artist. I don’t have perfect teeth, and so I think it is that thing where it’s not a complete alteration of my face in a way, but it did just give me so much. And Joan has that beautiful, beautiful smile, and that’s just one of the many things she’s known for that people couldn’t help but comment on, that she was shy about her teeth, but it was one of the most beautiful things about her face.
It came about when Jim saw some fitting photos, and he was really intent on this not looking like a bunch of polished, put together Hollywood types playing at folk people. He wanted to have as many flaws showing as possible, in part because it was a different time, and also because it’s folk music, it’s about authenticity and everything was really raw. And it gives you a sense of… Just more of a sense of time travel. So Elle and I had pretty much no foundation on whatsoever and added freckles and things, and all the guys had different things going on. And he saw my fitting photos and he just was like, “I think she needs teeth.” The best thing about them is that you’re not watching a trick that you can see. It’s just a transformation and you don’t quite know why. And yeah, Art just did a beautiful, beautiful job with those teeth. He needs his own corner at the Academy Museum.
DEADLINE: You were shooting the TV show FUBAR overlapping partly with A Complete Unknown. I hear you ended up playing guitar for Arnold Schwarzenegger on set. What did you sing and did he join in?
BARBARO: [Laughs] What was really fun was like everyone would sort of grab the guitar. A lot of people will know a song. So, Fortune Feimster was singing Dixie Chicks. I had learned how to play one song that wasn’t a Joan song, which was “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. And I taught another actor, Travis Van Winkle, how to ‘Travis pick’. And he knew how to play a version of “Blowin’ in the Wind”. And Arnold saw that and came over, and he was such a proud dad. He also called me when he saw the film and said some of the nicest things I think I’ve ever heard him say about anything. Everyone on that set was so supportive. The schedule just messed with a lot of things, and Skydance, and our line producer, everybody, was just like… It felt like a proud family positioning me to make this film.
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