Joan Baez says she “loved” how Monica Barbaro portrayed her in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
Speaking with the Marin Independent Journal, a local paper in Barbaro’s hometown located just outside of Baez’s Woodside, California home, the folk legend said, “If I didn’t think she was good at it, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it in general. But she looked enough like me and she had my gestures down. You could tell who it was. She worked so hard. Kudos to her for taking the role on.”
In the Academy Award-nominated film, Barbaro (herself up for Best Supporting Actress) plays Baez around the ages of 20 to 24 as she meets a burgeoning Dylan and plays a role in his rise to stardom. The movie also covers the pair’s brief romantic entanglement, something depicted as being sparked during the 1962 Cuban Missel Crisis. “It was pleasantly brief,” Baez joked of the scene, which was a work of fiction. She also noted her college-age granddaughter’s response: “She said, ‘I don’t want to see my grandmother making out in a film.’”
Baez also spoke about her relationship with the real-life Dylan, particularly when it came to participating in the activism at the core of the ’60s folk movement. “I wanted him to be in the marches and on the steps and whatever,” she said. “He didn’t want to and I couldn’t let that go. It was unfair of me to expect more of him because he was such an important force and those songs were so unbelievable. It took me the next 50 years to realize those songs were enough.”
Touching on our 2024 Film Performer of the Year Timothée Chalamet’s role as Dylan, Baez noted his take was a lot less “scruffy” than the Dylan she knew, but the charisma was spot on. “I have to come back to that’s how it was — when he walked into the room, he took up all the oxygen,” said Baez. “And so my part was always diminished in his presence. And in that sense the film is accurate.”
As for Barbaro, she spent nearly half a year trying to perfect her take on Baez, learning everything from her singing voice to her guitar style. The task, especially learning Baez’s “intricate, so specific” fingerpicking style, was “incredibly challenging,” and the actor had to “just acknowledge that it’s absolutely impossible to perfect Joan’s voice, or to sound like her.” Speaking with the folk singer and activist, however, eased some of the “imposter syndrome.”
“I felt emotional hearing her voice on the phone because I had been studying her voice in her 20s so intensely,” Barbaro told the paper. “And I felt like I had so much respect for her. But she was like, ‘Oh, I’m just in my garden listening to the birds.’ And I was like, oh, yeah, you don’t live or die by what we say about you in this movie. She’s lived her life… She wasn’t trying to dictate in any way my response to her. She was like, ‘I’m here, I’m open and available for any question you have.’ I was really appreciative that she was so generous with me.”
In the end, Baez appreciated the presentation of her life and songs in the film. “I thought the music was fantastic,” she said. “I may be blocking my feelings, but it’s an amusing movie. It was fun.”
A Complete Unknown is up for eight Oscars this year, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. Baez, meanwhile, recently spoke with Consequence to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Newport Folk Festival, which plays a central role in the movie, in our 2024 Festival of the Year retrospective.