‘A Complete Unknown’ Star Monica Barbaro on Her Oscar Nom, Imposter Syndrome and Why She Had to Delete Her Social Media

variety.com:

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Two years ago, Monica Barbaro attended the Academy Awards with the cast of “Top Gun: Maverick.” It was the actor’s first time at the ceremony. “I wanted to embrace every moment and enjoy it,” Barbaro recalls. “I remember looking around and going, ‘I may never be in this room again in my entire life.

So savor it.’” Of course, the actor will return this year, but not as a mere observer. Barbaro is nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress for her breakout turn as Joan Baez in “A Complete Unknown.” The biopic about Bob Dylan’s early years — specifically his choice to go electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival — skipped the festival circuit and hit theaters in December to a rapturous response, earning over $90 million (and counting) at the box office.

The film then landed eight Oscar nominations, including nods for writer-director James Mangold and co-stars Timothée Chalamet as Dylan and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

It feels like a meteoric rise for Barbaro, who was named one of Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch in October. Though she’s not new to acting — she was a cast member on the 2016 season of “Unreal” and made an impression in the aforementioned “Top Gun” sequel — the last few months have been a whirlwind for Barbaro, one she’s still figuring out how to navigate. “I’m truly so new to this,” she says at several points throughout this interview. “At the junket, I kept asking my publicist: ‘Did I do OK?’ And it’s not that I’m not being myself, I just don’t know how I fit into this space and these larger conversations.