Monica Barbaro: ‘Yesterday I went home thinking I’m a terrible actor and they’re finding out’

The California star may have earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Joan Baez in Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, but as she prepares for her stage debut in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, she says impostor syndrome is still a big problem

“I feel like I’m imitating an American accent, but it really is mine,” Monica Barbaro jokes. The actor has spent the morning rehearsing in an English accent for her stage debut in the National Theatre’s revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. During interviews, she says, she switches back. “I feel it’s best to use my own voice.”

Today, Barbaro – Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of activist and folk singer Joan Baez in James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown – is using that voice to reflect on a new chapter as a theatre actor. She is playing Madame de Tourvel, one of literature’s most famous casualties of seduction and manipulation. It’s a daunting challenge, not least because of the role’s formidable lineage, with Juliet Stevenson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Annette Stroyberg and Reese Witherspoon among those who have previously taken it on. “Speaking aloud in a theatre for this big of an audience is new for me,” she says, apprehensively.