Monica Barbaro's portrayal of the fingerstyle master Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown has led generations of music fans to discover (or perhaps even rediscover) the folk icon's hefty repertoire. And while the actor didn't manage to snag Best Supporting Actress at last night's Oscars for her celebrated performance, she did develop an undying love for the guitar that seems to be extending beyond her on-screen character.
“I carry my finger pick around all the time now, because it reminds me that I want to keep playing guitar,” Barbaro says in a new Hollywood Authentic video, in which she goes guitar shopping – and plays a few vintage Martins. “And also that it happened because it's so surreal to me that I even got to shoot this movie at all.
“It's really satisfying to get to be a part of something where the standard level is high, and you're working with the best in the industry. [With] the folk chords, you can play a lot of songs, which I think is why it was such an approachable music genre for everyone in in Greenwich Village buying a guitar – because you learn the chords and you can kind of apply them to most songs.
“So once you've got a handle on it, and maybe a couple [of] fingerpicking styles, you could play your own arrangements of a ton of songs, and so you could perform pretty quickly.”
In the various interviews Barbaro has given in the run-up to the Oscars, she revealed that she had never played guitar before auditioning for and landing this role.
“When I got it, I was like, ‘I wish I’d learned guitar, why did I do that to myself?!’” she told Hero Magazine. “I give Jim [James Mangold, director] a hard time too, because he likes to say, ‘It was always yours. As soon as I saw your audition, it was you.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you could have told me that!’ [laughs]”
As for her relationship with Baez, Barbaro revealed that she combed through “all of that evidence” to make the character – and her distinct guitar playing – come to life. Oh, and she even managed to get Joan Baez herself on the line...
“She wrote about herself a lot, and she’s really honest. She doesn’t hold any punches, even when she’s just talking about herself and her intentions, she has a sense of humor about herself and all of those things made her a very approachable person to understand,” she asserted.
“Also, the music preparation, having not been a singer or guitar player, diving headfirst into that was a way of connecting to the journey she went on as a fourteen-year-old.
She continued, “We had a brief phone conversation at one point and she said to me that she’d fall asleep with her guitar in her bed and then wake up and play it the next day. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I did that too!’ Those sorts of things naturally connect you to a character so it’s not quite as cerebral, it’s about letting that go when you get there.”
As for her co-star, Timothée Chalamet, the actor has already showcased his guitar chops on multiple fronts, including performing Bob Dylan deep cuts on Saturday Night Live.
