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This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam for Go, so welcome to the show. Today Today, Oscar-nominated actor Monica Barberto.

She plays musician Joan Baez and the newest Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown.

The film tracks Dylan, played by Timothy Salome, through the pivotal years of

1961 to 1965, in which the Minnesota-born musician transitions from folk hero to rock star.

It's during that interlude that Dylan meets Bias in the basement of a Greenwich Village cafe,

at once impressed and a little bit envious

of how her voice commands the room.

It's in a rendition of House of the Rising Sun,

which you'll hear a little bit of today,

that Barbaro captured my attention, too.

A complete unknown focuses primarily on Dylan's tumultuous relationship

to, well, pretty much everything and everyone.

But it's Barbaro's portrayal as Baez, first as a mentor to Dylan, then as a lover, that has really

stayed with me. It seems to have stayed with the Academy as well. Barbaro was nominated earlier this

year for her best supporting actress,

alongside talents like Isabella Rossellini for Conclave and Ariana Grande for Wicked.

And so, in celebration of Oscar Sunday, I invited Monica on to talk about how she embodied Baez, the vocal lessons required, the deep autobiographical research she did to make the performance feel true and lived in, and a whole lot more.

Before we get into it, I just want to take a moment here at the top to honor my late grandmother, Jan Myers.

She passed away this week at the age of 85. The only thing that rivaled her love for

her grandkids was her love for film and theater. For decades, she directed and acted in plays

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