- Monica Barbaro plays Joan Baez in “A Complete Unknown,” which follows Bob Dylan’s early career.
- Barbaro told BI that she and Timothée Chalamet, who plays Dylan, first met at a music rehearsal.
- Barbaro did vocal training to sing like Baez and duet with Chalamet’s Dylan.
In “A Complete Unknown,” Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro inhabit two musical legends: Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. True to form, the actors first met on set at a music rehearsal.
The film, directed by James Mangold, stars Chalamet as a young Dylan during the early years of his career, from his 1962 debut self-titled album through his controversial pivot to electric instrumentation. It features many of Dylan’s contemporaries from the era, including Baez (Barbaro), Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook).
The film’s greatest strength is its music, much of which was recorded live on set. Not only does Chalamet perform live as Dylan, but he duets in-character with his collaborators. That led to the perfect meeting for the actors.
“We heard each other’s voices in recording studio sessions, because I would sing duets to his voice,” Barbaro told Business Insider. “The first time we met was a music rehearsal, and it was just the most beautiful experience to me.”
Like Chalamet, Barbaro also did vocal training to play Baez in the film, working to emulate the singer’s trilling vibrato while also researching Baez’s life and career. The actor told BI that she knew the music was going to be “the biggest hill to climb,” and she knew that Chalamet — who spent five years preparing to play Dylan — had been practicing. By the time they first met, she felt ready to hold her ground not only as an actor, but as a musician.
“Getting to play next to him and hear the harmonies of our voices and the accompaniment, so complementary of each other — that was a career highlight,” Barbaro said.
“I’m so glad we waited until that point to meet each other and to work with each other,” she continued. “It was more true to a Bob and Joan version of the meeting that we’d have these musical proficiencies, that we could collaborate and play together.”
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