Monica Barbaro is in the thick of her rom-com summer — and she’s opening up about what’s next.
In a wide-ranging interview with Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote her new film, One Night Only, Barbaro teased what audiences can expect from Luca Guadagnino‘s Artificial, the upcoming film about the OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, starring Andrew Garfield.
“One day, we would show up, and Luca would be like, ‘This is a — what was the word he used? A zany comedy?’ No. ‘Madcap,’” the actress said. “He would basically be like, ‘This is a madcap comedy.’ Then the next day, he’d be like, ‘It’s a horror story.’”
She added, “Having seen it, I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s all of it.’ But, to be clear, I don’t think it suffers at all from a lack of tone or confusion of tone. I think, in reality, it kind of is all of that.”
In June, Amazon MGM Studios announced it was dropping the feature just months after Amazon entered into a $50 billion investment with OpenAI. Neon later landed the film.
Barbaro also discussed Simon Rich’s script, which was inspired by real events.
“We were dealing with really challenging material in terms of what we’re saying about people who are alive,” she said. “I feel like this had a particular kind of flavor to it, as far as his films are concerned, because it’s based on real events. I think it’s probably different from the way he might usually work, or our task was so heavily research-based.”
Last month, Garfield shared his reaction to the film’s move to Neon with The Hollywood Reporter: “I’m really grateful to Amazon for making the film with us, and I’m also really grateful to Amazon for helping it find a new home,” he said. “I think Neon’s a really, really exciting home for it. I think it’s a really good fit and I’m really excited to release it with them.”
Elsewhere in her Happy Sad Confused interview, Barbaro addressed comments made earlier this year by her A Complete Unknown co-star Timothée Chalamet, when he was asked whether audiences still have an interest in slower-paced movies. In his response, he said he wouldn’t want to be involved in an art form that “no one cares about,” citing ballet and opera as examples.
“I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey! Keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore,’” Chalamet said at the time. “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.”
“You’re the first person to ask me about this,” Barbaro said in response to Horowitz. “I can’t possibly know exactly where he was coming from when he said that, but one of the conversations we had on set was about his sister being a dancer, and he was actually saying it from a very hats-off, respect, kind of place.”
Barbaro said she interpreted Chalamet’s comments as being more about declining audiences for ballet and opera than a lack of respect for the art forms themselves.
“I feel like that was something where he was expressing something in a way that made it sound like it was about respect for the art form, when really I think it is about audiences for that art form. And I do think audiences are dwindling for those kinds of art forms,” she said.
Barbaro herself comes from a dance background, having trained in ballet before pursuing acting.
“I don’t know that that’s what he was saying, but that’s my personal takeaway. I’m a Gemini. I try to see all sides. I think in a way, there is some truth to that statement in a way that I would like to not lead with offense.”
Watch the full interview below.
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