The “completely defining” role that set Monica Barbaro up for life: “Like I breathed oxygen for the first time”Monica Barbaro gained fame when she co-starred alongside Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, but her breakthrough part was one that almost no one saw. Few performances in the 2020s have immediately announced the presence of a new star quite like Monica Barbaro’s version of Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, the Academy Award-nominated biopic that tracked the early days of Bob Dylan in the 1960s. However, Barbaro’s love of acting had been encouraged from a young age, as both she and her older siblings participated in ballet at their mother’s encouragement. It was something to strive for within her childhood, which Barbaro mentioned as being difficult as a result of her parents’ divorce. While Barbaro said that dancing came naturally to her, she discovered her love of acting during a school theatre production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which she played the role of Hermia.