Monica Barbaro ‘A Complete Unknown’ interview: There is an art to the cinematic middle finger
A Complete Unknown brings us Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, the famous folk musician who often collaborated with Bob Dylan. In preparation for the film’s release, I spoke with Barbaro about her role.
One of the things that delighted me about the film was Barbaro flipping off Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet). Baez is mad at him when he finally shows up for a duet with her at the Newport Folk Festival and she turns away from the audience and flips him off using her guitar to hide it. All while never missing a beat. Absolute perfection.
This is now the second time that Barbaro has mastered the art of “cinematically” flipping off her co-stars. In the 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick, her character Natasha “Phoenix” Trace is angry with Jake “Hangman” Seresin (Glen Powell). So she flips him off by pretending to scratch her face. It is perfection as well.
So it prompted me to ask Barbaro what the trick to a beautiful middle finger is in a movie, especially when you’re flipping off one of the internet’s boyfriends. We joked about it for a moment before she did say that she also had the same thought about her legacy as the best middle finger expert. “I had that thought too where I said ‘I guess this is just going to be part of…everything I do now.'”
Barbaro went on to express the power of it. “I think it’s about subtlety. I’ve never had to speak on this, this is so funny. I think the thing I always try to achieve when I have a moment like that is not to punch it too hard. But just sort of do it, I think it can only look cool if it is in a very natural moment.”
You can see our full conversation here:
Barbaro is absolutely brilliant as Baez in A Complete Unknown, in theaters on December 25.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
