Joan Baez freely admits that Bob Dylan broke her heart for dumping her immediately after his 1965 UK tour.

In a recent interview, she says she has now comes to terms with how their relationship fizzled out. “I have a new reaction now. It is such an honor to have been a part of his life and to share that music, and to have loved him and even liked him. That’s a recent change for me, because I was still hanging on to old stuff. He was a raggamuffin, which appealed to me!”

Dylan and Baez, folk royalty

Joan was already established when the unknown Dylan turned up in Greenwich Village. She actively encouraged, supported and promoted Bob before their relationship became more intimate.

Baez recalled seeing the 21-year-old Dylan not long after he arrived in New York City: “Somebody said: ‘There’s a kid over at Gerdes Folk City, you gotta go hear him'. Everybody was talking about him in our folk circles. So I went and I thought, ‘Jesus!’ I’d never heard anything like it. I’d never heard any words like that".

In A Complete Unknown, Baez is played by 34-year-old Monica Barbaro, who had not only had to undergo a course of singing lessons for the role but had to teach herself how to play guitar.

But believe it or not, that was the easy part. Monica told ABC News that the hardest thing of all was putting in a credible performance - a portrayal that would neither alienate Baez’s fans or upset the musician herself.

“I was terrified. I wanted to do her justice, and I also wanted to perfect her sound and make it as close as I possibly could to being her, so that she was accurately represented,” Barbero explained.

Barbero meets Joan Baez

The actress' fears were eased when she got to meet Baez in person. “It was amazing,” she says. “I was lucky to get to see her on stage before I was in person with her, so by the time we were backstage, I had calmed down a bit! And we just gave each other a big hug”.

Across the board, critics applauded Monica’s tender performance in A Complete Unknown, but the real shock came when she found out that she’d been nominated for an Oscar.

“My phone starts lighting up and it’s just all caps: ‘Congratulations!’ I fell on the floor, and just couldn’t believe it. And so excited - I think I was laughing hysterically”.

Barbaro is up against strong competition for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar - Ariana Grande (Wicked), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), Isabella Rossellini (Conclave) and Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez). All will be revealed on Sunday.

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