If I could have chosen any band in the world to go on tour with, it would have been Radiohead. I regard them as genius level artists and their music has personal meaning to me, they’re also a band who remain fiercely private and rarely grant access. So when Thom Yorke agreed to have me to join them on the Bologna leg of their recent European tour, it was a ‘pinch me’ moment. As a group, their music has appeared in numerous films, and as individuals, both Thom and Jonny Greenwood have created award-nominated soundtracks for cinema (with Jonny recently Oscar-nominated for his One Battle After Another soundscape).
Photograph by Colin Greenwood
Music and movies have always been bedfellows and this issue reflects that symbiosis – not only through Radiohead’s tour, but also through Simone Ashley who invited me to observe her work on her debut album in studios in London and LA (working with Diane Warren who has racked up 17 Oscar nominations). I first heard Simone sing during the Cannes Film Festival a couple of years ago as we sat by the sea and, impressed by what I heard, I’ve dipped in and out of her creative process as she’s shaped her EP – her acting experiences directly informing and complementing the music she’s writing. Music is also alive in my shoot with Mia McKenna-Bruce at Abbey Road Studios, as we discuss her acting journey that has led to her playing Maureen Starkey in Sam Mendes’ upcoming four-film event biopic, The Beatles.
Radiohead memorably featured in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and Baz has always been a director with great musicality. His latest film, EPiC, a reimagining of an Elvis Presley live Vegas concert created with unseen footage shows the artistic synergy between film and music. He tells us about that process, while our architecture feature this issue celebrates the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Music Hall in LA, Hollywood’s go-to sonic space.
Elsewhere, my on-set shoot on Crime 101 was a fascinating look at a stacked cast and their different approaches to the work, while a Mayfair walk with last year’s BAFTA Rising Star recipient, David Jonsson, showed the ambition and commitment required to harness a creative career. We stopped in Berkeley Square and it turned out David used to sit on a bench there and dream of being an actor as an 18-year-old kid. I’ve grown to expect such poetic, full-circle moments in my work now and I’m so happy a number of them are in this issue.
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams joins the team creating an LA story on set in the heart of Beverly Hills as writer-director Bart Layton explains how his heist movie, Crime 101, takes its inspiration from classic Hollywood and the harsh realities of La-La.
When Greg Williams meets the cast and crew of Crime 101 at the iconic Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills to capture the shooting of a new thriller for Amazon Studios, the building reverberates with classic Hollywood memories onscreen as well as off. ‘I think we were down the road with the Beverly Wilshire when someone mentioned that that was the Pretty Woman location,’ admits Brit writer-director Bart Layton. ‘I was also watching Beverly Hills Cop, and they use it there as well.’
I think a lot of what I wanted to do was have a big movie experience where it does feel like it can be a really enjoyable, fun night out. But also the characters and the storyline all exist within this world that we all inhabit. You want a real ripping yarn but once the super-structure is put in place, it gives you this ability to talk about other things
Though his choice of location was unintentional, his aim to create something of a throwback movie with the original story of an LA criminal (Chris Hemsworth) robbing jewel couriers at points along the city’s arterial highway, the 101, was not. As Hemsworth’s robber works the gems, a cop (Mark Ruffalo) trails him, a HNW insurance broker (Halle Berry) crosses paths with him, a mercurial competitor (Barry Keoghan) challenges him, and a young woman (Monica Barbaro) crashes – literally – into him. ‘It felt like there weren’t many of those kinds of movies being offered up in theatres with a big, fancy cast,’ Layton says of his inspiration for the intersecting stories, name checking Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie as a cinematic touchstone. ‘I think a lot of what I wanted to do was have a big movie experience where it does feel like it can be a really enjoyable, fun night out. But also the characters and the storyline all exist within this world that we all inhabit. You want a real ripping yarn but once the super-structure is put in place, it gives you this ability to talk about other things.’
The framework of a heist movie allows Layton to explore themes of wealth disparity, inequality, sexism, homelessness and status anxiety. ‘It’s certainly not something that’s limited to LA, but there is something very unique about that town where what you have, and what you drive, and how you look, and youth and beauty and money, is really the currency. There’s also a recurring theme of: what are you doing for yourself? Versus what are you doing for the opinion of other people? LA is a place where you can end up getting a little off-track if you’re not careful by focusing on spending your life doing things for the benefit of how other people will see you, and that will give you some sense of self-worth and some value.’
Thrumming throughout the film – like a blood vessel – is the eponymous 101; used as a get-away, seen from high rise offices, heard from low-income housing and seen as a red-and-white artery of head and tail lights. ‘Aside from the Beverly Wilshire, I wanted to film in places that weren’t frequently seen, to get the full spectrum, a bit of the underbelly. There is a topographical separation in LA. If you are the wealthiest of the wealthy, you physically live further above sea level, so we wanted to represent that a little bit. Each of the characters inhabited their own landscape of different materials and textures.’
While looking for locations, Layton confesses he used some of his experiences in the final script to add authenticity. ‘A lot of what was written into the character that Tate Donovan plays [of a multi-millionaire] was actually inspired by when we were scouting all of these mansions. We would find these guys nutting about in these mansions in amazing locations above the city, with these extraordinary art collections that were a complete hodgepodge. They were just valuable. So I wrote that in.’
There were places where I was probably referencing William Friedkin – To Live and Die in LA and The French Connection. Billy Friedkin saw American Animals, and then I got summoned to his house, which I was obviously never going to not do, because he is a big inspiration and a hero
He placed Ruffalo’s cop in the Valley, created high-end jewellers in Calabasas after scouting trips, and based a harrowing jewellery robbery on research trips to real-life family-owned businesses Downtown and chats with gem couriers. His research helped create a tapestry of the have and have-not stratas in the City of Angels. ‘In the 45 minutes that a 9- or 10-carat diamond takes to go from Downtown to Calabasas or Santa Barbara, it may increase in its sellable value by 500% or 600%. Because I come from a documentary background, I’m constantly looking at: how can I get whatever there is, whatever the texture of the real world is – how can we borrow that, or steal it, or leave the door open for it? Believe it or not, there are people who do the job that Chris does in the film. And there are a few of them in prison!’
Also key to creating a convincing world was casting the right actor to play an inscrutable, methodical robber who’s driven by his childhood experiences. He sent the script to Hemsworth and the two got together to chat. ‘I said, “It’s not going to be a flawless hero…” And the more I said about this character being real the more he was excited by that. So we were both on the same page. So then for me the challenge was: can I find a way not to lose any of his incredible star power and magnetism, but to still find a way for him to be real.’
The writer-director wrote a role for his American Animals star, Barry Keoghan, creating a trigger-happy antithesis to Hemsworth’s clinical pragmatist, and met with Halle Berry for the role of Sharon, an insurance broker who can’t break the glass ceiling at work. ‘She said, “I don’t just know Sharon. I am her,”’ Layton recalls, writing around her during shooting, adding aspects that played into her own experience.
Though the filmmaker says that writing and directing his first full fiction film was ‘out of his comfort zone’ and ‘a big leap’, he felt confident he could essay heart-in-mouth chase sequences skidding through LA neighbourhoods after a masterclass from a pro. ‘There were places where I was probably referencing William Friedkin – To Live and Die in LA and The French Connection. Billy Friedkin saw American Animals, and then I got summoned to his house, which I was obviously never going to not do, because he is a big inspiration and a hero. We talked about how he did those [chase scenes]. So this was just taking that and having a bigger train set than I’d ever had to play with before.’
Again, the conversation returns to the pleasure of creating an original story in an industry often dominated by established IP – even if Layton has pitted Thor against The Hulk in putting Hemsworth and Ruffalo on-screen together as adversaries. He laughs. ‘It’s good for everyone to have more choice. I feel like we should all have more of that in the cinema…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Crime 101 is in cinemas now
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams goes on set of heist movie, Crime 101, as lead, Chris Hemsworth, tells Hollywood Authentic about getting out of his comfort zone, how he stays sane and reteaming with The Hulk.
Chris Hemsworth is in London a month after teaser trailers have dropped for Marvel’s next Avengers get-together, Doomsday, featuring his much loved character, Thor. But the Australian actor’s next project is a world away from the superheroes and clearly delineated goodie/baddie morality of the comic book series that launched his career. In documentarian-turned-filmmaker Bart Layton’s first fully-fictional movie (after his based-on-true-events, American Animals), Crime 101, Hemsworth plays a lonely everyman with a complex family background who steals diamonds from couriers along LA’s famed freeway artery, the 101. As Davis, Hemsworth is watchful, tightly-wound, cautious – a man who disappears into crowds and whose apartment and social life is like a burner phone: impersonal, disposable, blank. It’s the opposite to gregarious Thor who wears his heart on his regal sleeve. And that’s exactly what Hemsworth was looking for.
What instantly struck a chord when I read this script. The character didn’t fall into an archetype or trope that felt familiar from something I had ever done, or something I had even seen before
‘It has changed throughout my career,’ he tells Hollywood Authentic of how he chooses projects the day after the London premiere for the film. Part of the filming took place in the UK, where Greg Williams captured the cast on-set. ‘Initially, it was about keeping some sort of continuity with the characters I was playing. That was also when I was being sent a lot of bigger action-type films. Then I was curious about doing comedy. But I guess now it’s just about it not feeling repetitive, and seeking something that is going to motivate you to dig as deep as possible because there’s a fascination or a curiosity or a world you haven’t inhabited before. That was what instantly struck a chord when I read this script. The character didn’t fall into an archetype or trope that felt familiar from something I had ever done, or something I had even seen before. This was an individual who was highly skilled in his line of work, and there was obviously a strength and a confidence there. But there was this fragility and vulnerability, which I thought humanised him in a great way, and allowed there to be layers of complexity that could be surprising for an audience.’
Talking to Layton about the grey areas of the character, Hemsworth admits to a certain nervousness in taking on the role. ‘Any time there is an element of trepidation or fear – it’s a really good thing. It forces you and motivates you to work harder and dig deeper. But the greater the challenge, I think the greater the outcome.’ Layton was also keen to tap into the actor’s more vulnerable side; ‘I had to find a way not to lose any of his incredible star power and magnetism, but to still find a way for him to be real,’ the director tells HA. Hemsworth chuckles at the recollection of Layton pointing out when some of Thor’s self confidence might be leaking into his performance. ‘Day to day on set, if there were default things I was slipping into, or moments where my physicality would shift into the familiar space of a more outwardly strong character I had played prior – he would say, “That’s not where we’re headed. Adjust the gait of the walk, or the vocal quality. Remember the tension in the chest…”. The voice was the big one for us, and it not having the same sort of register that I might have with Thor or the more outwardly projected strong characters I have played. It was more about the tension within the voice, and the cadence of how people spoke who are living on high alert, and in self-doubt.’
Of course the challenge was probably greater when working with another Avenger on-set. The Hulk himself, Mark Ruffalo, plays a crumpled LAPD cop who sees a pattern in the 101 heists and is determined to get his man. ‘That was interesting because Mark and I have done so much together, but in a heightened reality – mostly in a comedic improvisational way, especially with Thor: Ragnarok. And so we got on set, and immediately we’re like a couple of kids – old mates catching up – and having a laugh. But then as soon as the cameras rolled, it was quite uncomfortable. I was like, “Wow, this is very different. I can’t hide behind anything familiar here.”
It felt very exposed. And I think for both of us, it spurred on a real curiosity, and flights of hesitation, both of us trying to suss each other out, as the characters were. But having a shorthand with someone – a partner you trust who is a true team player – was just wonderful.’
Ruffalo is one of a stacked cast: with Halle Berry playing a high-net-worth Insurance broker who’s learning her own disposability as a woman, Barry Keoghan as a firebrand thief and antagonist, and Monica Barbaro as a woman who demands authenticity from Davis. ‘Working with Halle for the first time was absolutely amazing,’ Hemsworth enthuses. ‘I’m just the biggest fan of hers, and was quite intimidated. My character is performing with her character and I felt like that. I very much felt out of my comfort zone due to the admiration I have for her. It was like when I worked with Cate Blanchett. I would find myself just watching both of them as an audience member, and kind of going, “Oh, shit, I’ve got to respond. I’ve got to act here. I’ve got to do something.”’
Layton’s film casts Los Angeles as a character in itself and takes a look at the City of Angels through the prism of haves and have-nots, showing Skid Row alongside the mansions of Bel Air, the wealth disparity and the status anxiety of a moviemaking epicentre. Hemsworth admits that he recognises that portrayal of a city he works in. ‘The expendable nature of people in that town is quite evident. When I first moved to LA, it felt pretty overwhelming. The more time I spent there, you see the glitz and glamour on one hand, and then you see behind the curtain, and the grit, and the homelessness, and the mental health problems, and the crime, and so on. But there’s incredible things about the place, too. There’s a huge amount of artistry there, and motivation to build and create and be creative. But what Bart did so well is, he pulled back with the camera, and he allowed you to take in the expanse of both of those worlds, the entire spectrum. We had discussed at one point: could we replicate LA somewhere else in the world, and seek different tax credits for production purposes? But thank God, we didn’t. Because I just don’t think you’d be able to replicate LA in the way it’s been displayed here with such authenticity. You get a sense, in the way he shoots this film, how isolating and lonely that place can be. Even through times where I was having success, and it felt like all my problems and issues were solved, I had made it and so on – I would be in a lonely hotel room somewhere, going, “What is this all about? What does it mean?” So the deeper questions start to arise…’
Working with Halle for the first time was absolutely amazing. I’m just the biggest fan of hers, and was quite intimidated. My character is performing with her character and I felt like that. I very much felt out of my comfort zone due to the admiration I have for her
Those deeper questions about integrity, drive, finding meaning in the work are sometimes difficult to answer in the noise of Hollywood. Especially if you’ve had the sort of meteoric rise Hemsworth has enjoyed. So how does he keep a sense of purpose? ‘It’s having good people around. The team of people I work with, I’ve worked with for 15 or 20 years. They make the biggest difference to me, because I know not everyone has that. I’ve worked with people where I see it’s a different team each time, or they’re not fortunate enough to be able to bring the same people with them. It’s like going to a new school every couple of months, and trying to make a new set of friends. So that certainly keeps me grounded, and helps keep me sane.’
And in terms of creativity, the Aussie has plenty of other projects coming up to keep him motivated and challenged. Avengers: Doomsday lands in December, he’s just finished filming submarine thriller, Subversion and is in pre-production of Extraction 3. ‘Inhabiting material where there is true curiosity and enthusiasm – there’s the artistic journey. You’re not just there checking in, like, “What time do we finish? OK.” Clock in tomorrow. Clock out now. The aim is for it not to feel like work at all. And that really depends on whether I’ve chosen the right project or not. You know that pretty quick. He laughs. ‘There’s films that fly by, and you wish you could repeat them over and over again. And then there’s films that feel like they take forever… you know, “This might not have been the best choice.” I think for me the decisions are trickier because if it’s going to take me away from my family and my kids at this point, it needs to be special. And this one felt incredibly special…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Crime 101 is in cinemas now
Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you’ve been missing until you get the chance to sample it again. This supremely slick crime thriller is an emphatic reminder of the pleasures of smart, mainstream entertainment for grown-ups, playing in a cinema rather than episodically on the small screen. A theatrical staple for decades, this kind of star-powered vehicle has lost ground in multiplexes to franchise fare and IP with built-in awareness. But it’s good to have it back.
Amazon MGM Studios
This film marks the fully fledged ‘fictional feature’ debut of writer/director Bart Layton, who previously made terrific fact/fiction-blending documentaries The Imposter and American Animals, the latter particularly blurring the lines as it intercuts between the real people involved in a university book heist and dramatic recreations. Though not based on a true story, Crime 101 – which is adapted from a novella by Don Winslow – has the rigour of a deeply researched undertaking. It stars Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry and Mark Ruffalo, whose narrative strands soon become entwined. Hemsworth is lone-wolf jewel thief Davis, whose MO is committing meticulously researched jobs along California’s 101 freeway. No one gets hurt, no trace of evidence remains. Detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) is working a theory that some of these robberies might be connected. Meanwhile, insurance broker Sharon (Berry) sells eye-wateringly high-value policies to extremely wealthy clients, in return for little to no respect from colleagues at her firm.
Amazon MGM Studios
This trio will soon be on a collision course catalysed by wild card crim Ormon (Barry Keoghan, reuniting with Layton after American Animals), who lobs a spanner in the works by taking on a job that Davis deemed too risky. Working with A-list and Oscar-celebrated talent, Layton seems to be a natural at eliciting top-end performances. Hemsworth tamps down his superhero rizz to play the nomadic thief living without any real social connection, and his Marvel ‘friend from work’ Ruffalo is compelling as ever as a stretched-thin cop whose obsessive nature is wrecking his homelife. Berry – in her most gratifying role for some time – gets to dig beneath the surface glamour as a woman coming to see with clarity how her experience and intelligence is being overlooked. Keoghan, meanwhile, is the firecracker popping off chaotically.
Amazon MGM Studios
Adding to the sheen of class is the fact that even minor supporting roles are filled with significant talent – Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, Corey Hawkins – and Monica Barbaro makes the most of limited screentime in Maya, a love interest who cracks Davis’ hermetically sealed shell. It’s also edited with confidence by Jacob Secher Schulsinger and Julian Hart, the separate story strands blended skilfully and often overlapping before you’ve even realised it. It all drives towards a satisfying conclusion that makes good on the build-up’s promise. And while there is a focus on character in this somewhat grounded world, there are a couple of impressively muscular, plot-serving car chases to get the adrenaline pumping, and the whole thing is shot sharply (with some innovative vehicle mounts) by DoP Erik Wilson. The pulsing electronic score by Blanck Mass also sets off the tone nicely.
Michael Mann’s Heat and Thief are clear touchstones, as is William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A., and while it’s practically impossible for any new film to live up to those genre titans, it sure is enjoyable seeing someone giving it a go.
Amazon MGM Studios
Pictures courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios Crime 101opens in cinemas on 13 February
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by GREG WILLIAMS/JANE CROWTHER
Monica Barbaro is looking for resonance in her guitar and career as she goes shopping down Tin Pan Alley with Greg Williams.
It feels inappropriate to be looking at electric guitars,’ Monica Barbaro laughs as she runs her fingers along the contours of an ES-330, ‘given the context of our film’. I’ve brought the San Francisco native to London’s famous Denmark Street (so-called ‘Tin Pan Alley’) for some window shopping during a break in awards-season screenings for A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s biopic of Bob Dylan, tracing the musician’s transition from 19-year-old folk singer to Fender Stratocaster-playing icon at 24. Dylan’s use of a plugged-in instrument was incendiary to the folk scene in 1965 and his ascent was watched and helped by established acoustic singer-songwriter, Joan Baez. Barbaro plays Joan to Timothée Chalamet’s Bob – and she was not a guitar player when she got the job. Now, she can spot a Martin at twenty paces and carries a fingerpick in her pocket at all times.
It’s mid-December and there’s a chill in the air as we walk the London street famous as the hub of music publishing, where Elton John brought songs to sell, Bowie lived in a van for some time, the Stones recorded at Regent Sound Studios and Dylan visited in the ’60s. As we pause to peer in the windows of a shop selling drum kits, Barbaro recalls that her role on Top Gun: Maverick was the first to require musical training (alongside the G-force flights and aerial combat classes). ‘I was supposed to drum in Top Gun. I was in drumming lessons for two straight weeks. I remember, at one point, I started crying over the drums, because I was learning to fly, I was drumming, I was learning to play pool, working out – it was crazy. And they said, “We’re cutting that.” Thank God. It would have been a very bad idea!’
Her role as the first female pilot in the franchise, Lt. Natasha ‘Phoenix’ Trace, catapulted the actor to the awards circuit and to greater recognition, and gave Barbaro a heavyweight champion in Tom Cruise – he turns up to support her at the screening later that evening. ‘Tom cares so much about making a great quality film,’ she says when considering what she learned from Cruise. ‘There’s less settling in filmmaking. If you’re going to commit all of your time and your life, and sacrifice relationships for it, you want – at the end of the day – for it to be something you’re really proud of, and not just necessarily making something people fold laundry to. To be a working actor, it’s really satisfying to get to be a part of something where the standard level is high, and you’re working with the best in the industry. I’ve gotten to do that, which is crazy.’
If you’re going to commit all of your time and your life, and sacrifice relationships for it, you want – at the end of the day – for it to be something you’re really proud of
Top Gun: Maverick also got her the audition for Baez, a role that Barbaro always knew would test her musically. ‘I played the ukelele for fun, but I wasn’t a guitarist at all. I’d tried, but then my fingers would hurt, and all the songs I liked were really hard to play. So I kept quitting – which is easy to do when you don’t have any deadlines or anything.’ She had a deadline of five months to perfect a number of Baez’s songs when she landed the part. ‘Then the strikes happened, so I had more time to practise. And that was helpful. I almost lost the job in that time because of scheduling stuff, but I just kept practising. And that’s when I learned to play and sing at the same time. I couldn’t train with any coaches, so I was just playing and singing, and I finally learned how to do both at the same time.’
She still plays now but has the bug to learn more. ‘I’m not super-comfortable strumming because I’m still really shy about it; fingerpicking you can do quietly.’ We walk to Hank’s Guitars, a fixture on Tin Pan Alley housed in a Grade II listed 17th-century building and specialising in vintage guitars where artists such as Keith Richards, The Edge and Noel Gallagher have shopped. An Aladdin’s cave of six-strings, Hank’s is wall-to-wall with guitars; upstairs – acoustics, downstairs – electric. We start upstairs where Barbaro makes a beeline for the Martins, Baez’s signature instrument. A vintage poster for a Baez album is on the wall next to them. ‘The sound of these is so beautiful,’ Barbaro says, taking one down and perching on a leather chair, surrounded by instruments. ‘I feel very lucky that I own one now. I’m not sure if production gave it to me, or if I stole it, but I’m not giving it back!’
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a fingerpick, beginning to noodle on the strings, playing There but for Fortune. It’s the fingerpick she used throughout filming as Joan. ‘I actually carry it around all the time now because it reminds me that I want to keep playing guitar, and also it feels like this totem of proof that it happened, because it’s so surreal to me that I even got to shoot this movie at all. Putting it on feels like a self-belief thing that’s kind of magical.’ As she strums, she shakes her head and claims she’s rusty. ‘The challenge when you finish something like this is: “Can you keep yourself practising once it’s all said and done?” Because we were training hours and hours a day, and we were filming for hours and hours. Your skill level just sky rockets, and then you wrap, and you need to do other things that don’t require a guitar…’
She switches songs; ‘This is a really pretty one, Girl from the North Country.’ It’s an apt tune given she’s a NoCal girl, born in San Francisco, raised in Mill Valley, now living in LA. From a young age she trained as a dancer; ballet predominantly, while also studying Flamenco, Salsa and West African dance. She didn’t know it at the time but Baez’s son, Gabe Harris, drummed for her classes; she only realised when she began researching Baez. Growing up the daughter of divorced parents – a neurosurgeon Dad and a teacher’s assistant Mum – Barbaro was encouraged to embrace the arts. ‘My dad was the first person in his family to even go to college, and grew up very blue collar, Italian-American. I think for me, he’s definitely the person I saw as the textbook American dream. It’s an “anything is possible” kind of belief structure that was given to me by him. And he encouraged me to stay in the arts, because, for him, that felt like something he couldn’t do. But he worked really hard so that I would have the financial stability to be free enough to take the risk of becoming an artist. So I felt very supported by that. My dad is always like, “You’re not lucky. You’ve worked really hard. You’ve prepared.”’
Part of that preparation was moving to New York to study dance at New York University. ‘Dance taught me how much it takes to learn something, and to learn something to the point of absolute believability that you’ve been doing that thing for your lifetime. Dancers can immediately tell when someone is a dancer or not, even just in the way they walk. So to hold a guitar like a guitar player, it takes years and years of carrying that guitar around, and playing it, and knowing how to wield it in situations. So the challenge when it came to playing Joan was immense.’
Immersing herself in Baez’s work, documentary and memoir, learning to play and sing, Barbaro also collaborated with DoPs on her look, creating bespoke teeth and hair, and – with Hollywood Authentic’s resident columnist and the film’s costumer designer, Arianne Phillips – finding the clothes. Though the cast pre-recorded their tracks for the film, when it came to shooting, the decision was made they would all sing ‘live’ on set. That meant Barbaro singing The House of the Rising Sun in a Greenwich club and re-enacting on-stage pairings with Dylan, most notably at the Newport Folk Festival (re-created in a park in New Jersey) and filming at the Chelsea Hotel.
‘All through my pre-teens, all I wanted to do was move to New York and be a New Yorker. And I got to do that in college. Our dance studio was on 2nd Avenue, between 6th and 7th. When I go back there I do reflect on who I was then, and everything I hoped for, and everything I wanted, and wasn’t sure I could ever accomplish. And things I didn’t expect in this lifetime, like this movie.’ Filming A Complete Unknown on location in NY was a full circle moment for the actor. ‘I remember just acknowledging that I was a working actor, and having that feel monumental, walking on those same streets like, “Wow. Remember when you were so cold and broke and tired all the time, and training in dance, and being sweaty, running from one class to another, and trying to keep your head on straight, and barely doing so?” And then to just be like, “OK, now I’m financially stable, doing what I love. That’s huge to me.”’
Barbaro also talked to Baez on the phone, and told her she’d previously worked with her son. ‘She got a kick out of that! It’s got to be so weird to talk to somebody 50 years your junior who’s going to put on some long hair and play you. But she was really generous with her time. We had a great conversation. Folk is a music of authenticity. It’s not over-polished or adorned. I think they are that way about themselves. But anything that she gave me that wasn’t in her memoirs, I feel protective of, and I’ll keep that to the conversation.’
The authenticity of Baez, Dylan and the folk community is something Barbaro likes and hopes to emulate in her own life. ‘They are just very honest. They’re not holding back. They’re not trying to polish an image. Like today, I was given a couple of outfit options by my stylist, and I was like, “This is Hollywood Authentic. I think I want to wear my own clothes, and have my natural hair.”’ The idea of living fully in the present is something that she also subscribes to after the whirlwind of awards season with Top Gun: Maverick that culminated in the Oscars ceremony. ‘When I was there with Top Gun, I felt so lucky to be there, and just tried to be so present in that moment. I just kept thinking: “Embrace it. See it. Feel it.’ The awards are very helpful to films and their future promotion, and they can change an actor’s life. But one of the coolest things about being in that conversation is getting to have that sense of community in a space that can be quite intimidating professionally. It was just so exciting to be there, and to watch people make speeches and honour their fellow nominees, and really truthfully do so. It’s not fake. That was so cool.’
I would love to do theatre. I’ve always wanted to. I know it from a place of dance, but it’s also the thing that made me want to be an actor
We return downstairs to look at eclectic guitars so Barbaro can ask the staff advice on an entry point instrument. As they talk over the counter, she spots a vintage Martin in the window. It’s 124 years old with a short neck and a £13K price tag. She’s given the guitar and she turns it reverentially in her hands, fingerpicking on it while she’s shown electrics. She’s looking for resonance and coos over a vintage 1966 ES-330, similar to the Casino owned by John Lennon. Despite embodying a folk hero and playing all her songs ‘live’ during filming, Barbaro is still shy about her playing; ‘I want to be able to plug into headphones.’ She swaps the acoustic for the electric, sitting comfortably in the shop talking hollow vs semi-hollow body while she plucks the strings.
She considers what she’d like to take on next – along with transferring her skills to eclectic. ‘I would love to do theatre. I’ve always wanted to. I know it from a place of dance, but it’s also the thing that made me want to be an actor – getting to do A Midsummer Night’s Dream when I was 12. Plus, I’d just love to pivot into a totally different genre and get to learn a new skill-set. I just like the newness of it.’ She’ll film Bart Layton’s Crime 101 in London in the new year alongside Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry. It is, she promises, a pivot. But for now, she needs to work her way to a much-needed Christmas break and make some decisions on what’s next in 2025. One of those decisions might be whether to buy the gleaming ES-330. As we part on the street she tells me: ‘I almost walked out of there having dropped £8,000 on a guitar.’ She laughs. ‘I was like, I’ll think about it. I’ll go away and sleep on it. But I’m still in town, so I guess I could go back and get it…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by GREG WILLIAMS/JANE CROWTHER A Complete Unknown is in cinemas now
