How Monica Barbaro transformed into ‘Queen of folk’
Monica Barbaro reveals how she achieved her lauded portrayal of folk legend Joan Baez in the critically acclaimed Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
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Learning to hold a tune and strum the basics on a guitar is one thing – convincing people you’re world class was a whole other game for actor Monica Barbaro.
Playing legendary American folk singer Joan Baez in Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, the actor fully immersed herself in all the training required to pull off a critically acclaimed performance.
“It is in the eye of the beholder I guess,” Barbaro told Insider when asked her level of musical skill today.
“I do think I achieved a certain level of proficiency that I’m quite proud of, but a huge part of the sort of final step and something that I think maybe takes a lifetime to work on was the confidence piece, because I knew where I started and Joan is a confident performer – she talks about having stage fright and working through that – but in terms of knowing that she has this incredible skill set, she’s always been quite confident about that, quite confident about her voice being strong, and she worked very hard to become a great guitarist.
“So taking all that training and then putting it in my body and sort of trusting that there was enough there to play the confidence of a performer who goes in front of people live, that was the final step for me.”
A Complete Unknown sees Barbaro starring alongside Hollywood man of the moment, Timothee Chalamet, as Bob Dylan.
It is a musical biographical drama that focuses on Dylan’s early days and rise to global folk music superstardom.
In the early 1960s, Baez was far better known than Dylan. She was known as the ‘Queen of Folk’.
“I can play and I can sing, I can still pick up and play Joan’s songs,” Barbaro said.
“I can’t improvise on the guitar, I am not at that level, I wish I could.
“I think that’s when you really have complete ownership over an instrument, when you can, like, truly speak its language and in whatever creative way that comes up.
“But, yeah, I can play and I can sing. It was kind of crazy to get to perform with people live and to get to perform next to Timothee Chalamet, who does an incredible job in this movie.
“It was big shoes to fill but I think I did what I came to do, so that’s as self effusive as I’ll probably ever get about it.
“That was really my mission, to just become the best musician I could possibly be, as close to Joan as I could possibly be. So learning to sing and learning to play the guitar, that was my task.”
Barbaro spoke to Insider via Zoom. It was very hot evening in Sydney, intense sweaty hot, so an apology for wearing a tank-top and shorts on my part was in order.
“I wish I was as comfortable as you, I am in a plastic suit dress,” she laughed.
“That’s what I wish I had on right now.”
Barbaro, 34, originally from San Francisco, has been a working actor for more than a decade.
Her biggest role until now has been as Phoenix in Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick.
Even before its release, A Complete Unknown garnered Hollywood awards season attention. The film opened in cinemas here this week.
Barbaro is nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, while A Complete Unknown is also up for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Chalamet and Barbaro star alongside the likes of Edward Norton and Elle Fanning.
A Complete Unknown was nominated for several Golden Globes and is up for a number of British Academy Film Awards too.
“It is interesting to hear this sort of chatter before the world has seen the movie,” she said.
“But I’m just sort of watching it and discovering and learning, it’s exciting.
“It is so fortunate to get to be in a film that is getting that kind of attention. It is easy to sort of be cynical about awards, but I’ve also seen beautiful movies that don’t get any recognition so to be a part of something that I think is getting what it deserves … so I think it is well deserved and it’s exciting.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but it’s but it’s great, it certainly helps too to get people to theatres.”
Not being someone who grew up with Dylan as the soundtrack to their life, I shamefully admitted to Barbaro that much of the story was new to me.
“Good, I think that is one of the benefits of this movie,” Barbaro said.
“I think there is a possibility that we will be introducing Bob Dylan and his music to a lot of people.”
A Complete Unknown provides a fascinating insight into Dylan as a man, as a songwriter, his music, fame, fandom and everything that comes with being one of the most recognisable names and faces in the world.
“Bob Dylan as an artist, I think, and the interest in evolving and whether or not that fame and fan base sort of allowed for it, and what those challenges can be like,” she said.
“It was interesting to me to talk about artistic evolution but, for me, my job was just to really embrace Joan and to become as much like her as possible, not to create sort of an imitation or a caricature of her, but to capture her essence.”
Baez, now 84, is regarded as one of the greats of folk music. But it has been her songwriting and activism that also stood out throughout her career.
She and Dylan had a complicated relationship that crossed over from professional to personal when they began dating and recorded music together.
“When we meet her in this film, she’s like the queen of folk already, she’s so young but has this massive career,” Barbaro explained.
“She’s looking for new music, and then she meets Bob, who she recognises as this genius of a writer and is saying all the things that she’s trying to find the words to say.
“She’s this budding activist and she’s wanting to say more with her music, so she’s just drawn to him, but the challenge for me was to become a musician who looked like she could be world renowned.”
Barbaro has never met Dylan, although she did eventually speak to Baez while filming the movie.
“It took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to do that,” she explained.
“In part, because sometimes you don’t know what they’re going to say to you and if it will be helpful. But I was so absorbed in her life, I was so obsessed with her. I was working so intensely. We had actually started filming the movie and I kept having dreams about her, specifically about meeting her.
“I think my subconscious was trying to tell me that it’s okay that I don’t need to be in fear of discussing this with her. And it felt like a very Joan thing to do to reach out.
“So I reached out and … we had a beautiful conversation. She said at one point that she was hoping I would reach out so it just sort of solidified that really I felt like I did understand something about her and that I felt like I was on the right path.”
Dylan, himself, approved the script for the James Mangold-directed film.
And the film doesn’t shy away from showing his flaws. A Complete Unknown paints a picture of a man who struggles with fame. He is arrogant at times, often even, and isn’t always kind.
“I mean, fame can be tricky,” Barbaro said.
“Just what I know of Joan, particularly at this time, she was a worldwide sensation, but it was also really important to her to say something of significance and to speak out politically and so that was where she steered throughout the duration of the time of this film and then, shortly thereafter, she would say, ‘I’m an activist first’. I think she resisted a lot of what that fame brought and wanted to use it to do some good and to really say something.”
Barbaro is currently shooting a movie – Crime 101 – with Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry and Barry Koeghan.
She has a number of other projects in the works, either pre-production or in the planning phase, including Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas with Christian Slater, Vanessa Hudgens and Joe Mangnallo.
Like many actors and others in creative fields, she takes nothing for granted.
“Lucky me,” she said of her busy schedule.
“Truly, I started this not knowing if I would ever work and I think about that all the time. I genuinely just feel so fortunate to keep working and doing what I love.”
A Complete Unknown is in cinemas now
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