The role that brought Monica Barbaro full circle: “It would be so cool to be a part of that”
When A Complete Unknown first hit cinemas in 2024, most reports were about how good Timothée Chalamet was at embodying Bob Dylan. While the floppy-haired idol put in a decent shift as the iconic songwriter, there were other elements of the film that were just as impressive. Edward Norton gave a very likeable portrayal of Pete Seeger, and Boyd Holbrook was born to play Johnny Cash. Then there was Monica Barbaro.
The San Francisco native was given the unenviable task of playing Joan Baez, a sensational musician in her own right and Bobby D’s on-again, off-again squeeze. Barbaro was brilliant in the role, offering some much-needed grounding in response to Dylan’s erratic behaviour. She also nails the music, performing a beautiful rendition of Baez’s song ‘Silver Dagger’. She did such a good job that the woman she was playing even came out in support of her.
Prior to her Oscar-nominated turn as the folk icon, Barbaro had appeared in a number of other high-profile projects. She had a major role in FUBAR, the Netflix action-comedy that saw Arnold Schwarzenegger take on scripted television for the first time. She’s also had roles on TV shows like Hawaii Five-O, Chicago Justice, and The Good Cop, but in terms of feature films, her breakout performance was in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.
Released a whopping 36 years after the original, Top Gun: Maverick picks up on the life of Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell, played by Tom Cruise, decades after his heroics in the first film. He is called back to the titular flight school to coach a group of young pilots through a dangerous mission, one of them being Miles Teller’s Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw, the son of his deceased friend, Goose. Other members of the team include the arrogant-but-talented ‘Hangman’ played by Glen Powell, the shy and nickname-less ‘Bob’ played by Lewis Pullman, and Barbaro’s character, the feisty lone female candidate for the mission, Natasha ‘Phoenix’ Trace.
Playing Phoenix was a very introspective experience for the rising star. In an interview with Air Mail, Barbaro revealed that she had only seen Top Gun for the first time in 2009, when studying at drama school. She had told her friends that she’d never seen it, being far too young to have caught it during its original run, and they were so shocked that they forced her to watch it on the spot.
“I remember thinking it would be so cool to be a part of something like that,” she said, admitting that she used to run through scenes from the film in her head while auditioning for other roles. “It’s like a time capsule for a decade, for a generation. I just never thought my place in that puzzle would be to be a pilot!”
Luckily for Barbaro, Maverick lived up to every expectation set by its predecessor. The film made an absolute killing at the box office, becoming the first Cruise-fronted picture to gross over $1billion. The critics loved it too, smothering it with praise. It even scored a coveted ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Oscars, although claims that it ‘saved cinema’ following the pandemic were a little overblown.
After waiting over a decade to join the team, Barbaro proved that she belonged up in the air, and her career is still reaping the rewards of this success.
