Monica Barbaro’s Singing Lessons, Ryan Destiny’s Olympic Boxing Training and More Special Skills Actors Have Learned for Roles

variety.com:

Stuart Miller Growing up in Mill Valley, Monica Barbaro played piano, flute, violin, guitar and ukulele. But not for very long — and not particularly well. “I started piano five times and tried to teach myself some guitar and some ukulele,” says Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez in “A Complete Unknown.” “I always wanted to play cello, but in school, when I said that, my friend laughed at me, and she was doing violin so, like the lame little kid I was, I took violin.

And I hated it, the sound of those high-pitched notes right up in my ear.” In other words, Barbaro was essentially starting from scratch when it came to playing a professional musician on screen.

She’s not alone. Ryan Destiny had “zero” boxing experience before playing two-time Olympic champion Claressa Shields in “The Fire Inside.” In fact, while Destiny is an actor, a singer and a dancer, one thing she is not is an athlete. “I tried every sport as a kid because my parents were into making me try things, but I failed,” she says, adding that the only two she stuck with “longer than a week” were volleyball and cheerleading. “I was just bad at everything.” Actors have often learned new skills to inhabit the characters they’re playing: Paul Newman picked up pool for “The Hustler” and Tom Cruise learned to fly a helicopter for “Mission: Impossible”; Margot Robbie took up figure skating for “I, Tonya,” while Keanu Reeves learned to surf in “Point Break” and Natalie Portman studied ballet for “Black Swan.” Daniel Day-Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence each learned to skin animals (for “Last of the Mohicans” and “Winter’s Bone,” respectively).

And this year is no exception. Beyond Barbaro and Destiny, André Holland studying painting for “Exhibiting Forgiveness” and Angelina.