Joan Baez compliments Monica Barbaro’s performance in ‘A Complete Unknown’: “Kudos to her”
Joan Baez has shared her thoughts on Monica Barbaro’s performance as her in A Complete Unknown, the new Bob Dylan biopic.
Baez and Dylan famously dated in the 1960s but their relationship was tumultuous, with the latter marrying Sara Lownds in 1965, shocking Baez. Many songs came from the pair’s relationship, most notably Baez’s iconic track ‘Diamonds and Rust’.
Their relationship is explored in James Mangold’s latest film, which sees Timothée Chalamet play the ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ singer. In the movie, she is played by Barbaro, but the relationship is not the main focus of A Complete Unknown, much to Baez’s relief. “It was pleasantly brief,” she told Marin Independent Journal.
Stating that she was impressed by Barbaro’s performance, Baez said, “I loved what she did in the film.” She continued, “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.”
Baez also highlighted that her granddaughter was glad that the movie didn’t go into too much detail about her grandmother’s romantic life, with the singer explaining, “She said, ‘I don’t want to see my grandmother making out in a film.’”
Baez and Dylan’s relationship has been the subject of much interest over the years, with the couple’s musical partnership leading them to a romance that subsequently fizzled out, leaving a bitter taste.
In a three-star review, Far Out wrote of A Complete Unknown: “Genius does not infer substance, and perhaps Hollywood should shift their focus to biopics on artists who showed a fragment of a personality than names big enough to bolster box office receipts.”
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