How long has it been since a documentary dominated public conversation, the box office, chats between friends and social media memes? You might have to go back to 2004 and Fahrenheit 9/11, by Michael Moore, or that hybrid (but a film, nonetheless) that blew many minds — The Blair Witch Project in 1999 — to see something similar to what’s happening in the United States surrounding You Can See Everything, this season’s cultural phenomenon.
Is Nathan Fielder interested in making something innovative and great, or does he only really care about making money?
That's technically the question You Can See Everything, the new A24 documentary co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim,asks about its subject, Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder and convicted fraudster currently in federal prison.
As the documentary progresses, however, it's a question one increasingly asks about Fielder himself.
You Can See Everything was billed as an intimate look at the day-to-day life of Holmes, her romantic partner Billy Evans, and their two children, in the days before she reports for her 11-year prison sentence.
In truth, that only describes the first half of the three-hour-long film, in which Fielder and his camera crews are embedded in Holmes and Evans' cramped San Diego beach house in the month preceding her incarceration.
In part one, we truly do see everything, from Holmes making breakfast for the kids and talking to lawyers about last-minute appeals to Evans showering naked.
All the while, Fielder obsessively explores in his own meta-comedy style a question many have asked about Holmes: Were the lies she told about Theranos' diagnostic machines merely a scam to rip off investors? Or had she actually convinced herself that these falsehoods were at most white lies in the service of a great and revolutionary technology on the cusp of becoming a reality?
Then, after 90 minutes of this exploration, Holmes checks in to prison, and Fielder's primary subject disappears from the film. The focus then shifts to Evans and whether or not he's solely responsible for a new unethical scheme Holmes has found herself enmeshed in.
In a Fielderesque reenactment, it's revealed to the audience that Evans conditioned the documentary's access to him and Holmes on the couple being paid a percentage of the film's profits.
Any ethical documentarian would have to say no to this ask.
Subjects being economically disinterested in the films they're appearing in is what separates real documentaries, which are supposed to accurately portray real life, from fictional films and public relations puff pieces.
Incredibly, however, Fielder, Oppenheim, and A24 eventually agree to Evans' demand for a cut of the film's profits.
Once this crooked bargain is made, You Can See Everything then shifts to exploring whether Holmes was aware that she'd be profiting from the film or whether this was a deal the domineering Evans secured without her knowledge.
Fielder tells us that he believes the answer will shed light on whether Holmes actually sees herself as a world-changing inventor or whether she really is just out for the money.
Fielder eventually makes this point directly to Evans during an on-camera confrontation and in a reenactment of his unfilmed meeting with Holmes in prison. By accepting payment for the documentary, the two are undercutting their case that Holmes is more than a wealth-obsessed fraudster, he tells them.
And by forfeiting their rights to back-end profits, they can make the audience more sympathetic to their case that Holmes did have motivations beyond a paycheck.
As a humble viewer, I confess I found this investigation somewhat boring. For starters, it seemed obvious to me that Holmes was in on the scheme to get paid for the documentary from the beginning.
Moreover, it's all kind of beside the point. Once the deal to pay Evans was inked, the documentary has been irrevocably changed into an elaborate rip-off. The only question remaining is whether the subjects or the audience will be the ultimate sucker.
When Fielder pointedly pushes Evans and Holmes to surrender profits they're contractually entitled to, he's no longer a disinterested filmmaker exploring the couple's psyches. He's an economically interested party pressuring business partners to back out of money they've been contractually promised or else risk extreme embarrassment in the film he's making.
If Fielder fails to convince the couple to surrender their rights, moviegoers are left with the knowledge that a portion of their ticket revenue is benefiting a convicted fraudster.
If the director does succeed in his pressure campaign, it means that there's more profit to go around for the makers of the film.
A documentary about conmen itself becoming a con would not be an uncharacteristic Fielder bit.
His projects frequently feature a deliberate, escalating blurring of the lines between art and reality. See, for instance, the second season of his show The Rehearsal, in which an investigation into airline pilots' mental well-being culminates in Fielder becoming a licensed 737 pilot while waiting on an autism diagnosis.
Something similar can be said for the connection between the themes in the documentary and co-director Oppenheim's recent feature film Primetime about the making of the reality show To Catch a Predator. That movie was also about how TV producers can script reality and invent crimes all for the benefit of a show that's allegedly meant to merely document them.
You Can See Everything pulls off something similar. Its investigation into Holmes' motives leaves one seriously questioning the filmmaker's probity. Perhaps that makes it a genius bit of meta commentary on the unreality of documentaries.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. There's no getting around the fact that Fielder made a crooked bargain to get his documentary made and then used his power as a director who did, in fact, see everything to screw people out of money they had been promised.
One can imagine that the victims of Holmes' Theranos scam will find You Can See Everything a frustrating film to watch. At the end of the day, this woman defrauded them of hundreds of millions of dollars. Her precise motives for doing so probably aren't all that interesting to them.
I certainly feel a similar way as a paying viewer of the unethical travesty that is You Can See Everything.
Film producer Tommy Harper has sought to bring a Hollywood sensibility to verticals.
Kayla Oaddams/Getty Images for Warner Brothers Pictures
Film producer Tommy Harper is shutting down his micro drama app VeYou after about six months.
Harper, who sought to build the "HBO" of the genre, said he would still produce for other platforms.
The micro drama space has shifted as tech giants push in.
The app that wanted to be the "HBO" of micro dramas is shutting down.
Prolific film producer Tommy Harper is shutting down his app, VeYou, after about six months. A message on VeYou said the service would end November 6.
Harper told Business Insider he would continue producing series, distributing them via TikTok's micro-drama app PineDrama, YouTube, and other partners.
Harper, whose credits include "Star Wars" and "Top Gun: Maverick," is one of several Hollywood vets trying to bring their prestige sensibility to micro dramas, the soapy, low-budget series that got their start in China and have exploded in the US.
The move shows how fast the space is changing as Big Tech companies lean in. Micro dramas — also called "verticals" — cost a fraction of a traditional feature-length movie, but apps often lose money because of the high cost of marketing, and VeYou didn't have massive financial backing.
"In the past year, TikTok, Meta, and YouTube all moved hard into short drama," Harper emailed. "When the three biggest attention platforms commit to a format, distribution is decided. The opportunity for an independent company is to be the best supplier to those platforms, not to compete with them for installs. So we're focused where we have the edge: making the shows."
Harper raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding for VeYou from investor S32, a venture firm started by Google Ventures founder Bill Maris, who's also backed 23andMe, Impossible Foods, and Nest. VeYou has made a handful of originals, starting with "Love Under Fire," a romance drama starring Kasey Esser, who wrote the series alongside Harper.
The micro drama market is changing fast
The micro drama space has changed dramatically in recent months.
In the past year, AI-generated characters have increasingly taken their place alongside human actors, and free, ad-supported offerings are competing with the "freemium" apps that had dominated the landscape.
A report by media consultancy Owl & Co. found two-thirds of films released by leading apps in the third quarter of this year outside China were AI-generated, up from 3% in the first quarter.
TikTok's free app PineDrama rolled out in January, and by the third quarter, it accounted for more than half of all micro drama views across 16 leading apps, according to the Owl & Co. report.
Other tech giants have also moved quickly into the space and made themselves bigger viewing destinations for micro dramas.
YouTube released a new feature that allows creators to bundle their short videos in a series of episodes or seasons, designed to be viewed sequentially.
On Meta, the dominant platform used by micro drama apps to acquire customers, some apps are running portions of their films lasting 20 minutes or more as ads to get people to subscribe.
Lori Golden-Stryer, the CEO of RIVR Media, a producing partner for VeYou, said VeYou's films set themselves apart through their scripts, acting, and direction. She said she was encouraged to see its series perform well on TikTok, based on platform data and her company's monitoring.
"People want live characters," she said. "I don't think they want AI. I've seen a lot of different verticals, and I'd like to think ours were a little cut above."
In the race for the mayoralty of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the United States, two things are certain: a woman will win, and she will be a Democrat. But with a high share of undecided voters and only days remaining before the election, it is still unclear whether Karen Bass will win another term or whether the progressive challenger Nithya Raman will take the post.
Nem no maior viveiro mundial de vídeos feitos por IA as pessoas estão dispostas a pagar bilhete para a ver. O primeiro filme chinês inteiramente gerado por inteligência artificial estreou na sexta-feira, no que promete ser um teste difícil nas bilheteiras para a indústria tecnológica em expansão do país. Mas a venda antecipada de bilhetes está a ficar aquém do esperado. Segundo a plataforma de bilhetes Maoyan, estão marcadas para sexta-feira mais de 10.000 sessões do thriller de ficção científica “Sanxingdui: Future Past“. A recetividade do público tem sido reduzida. As receitas do filme aproximavam-se dos 290.000 yuans (38 mil
Nem no maior viveiro mundial de vídeos feitos por IA as pessoas estão dispostas a pagar bilhete para a ver. O primeiro filme chinês inteiramente gerado por inteligência artificial estreou na sexta-feira, no que promete ser um teste difícil nas bilheteiras para a indústria tecnológica em expansão do
For the past two decades, Zoe Kazan, 43, has built a low-key career, moving between independent films and more ambitious projects. The former include Ruby Sparks (2012), a comedy she also wrote and produced. The latter include hits such as She Said (2022), in which she starred alongside Carey Mulligan as one of the New York Times reporters who exposed Harvey Weinstein’s abuses.
The Smashing Pumpkins frontman reflected on his 30-year relationship with the shock rocker, whose wife's twin sister is married to the Pumpkins' James Iha. "I don’t want the world to tell me who my friends are and who I should associate with,” he said. "In some cases I knew personal things behind the scenes that are not in the public sphere."
Mikey Madison burst onto the scene, won an Oscar and disappeared. Just a couple of seasons ago, the 27-year-old Los Angeles actress was everywhere in Hollywood. After a long awards campaign in which Demi Moore seemed poised to triumph at every ceremony, the Oscars delivered a surprise. Madison, still virtually unknown to the wider public, took home the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Anora, in which she played a sex worker in a gritty portrayal far removed from Pretty Woman and other fairy tales.
El 25 de septiembre, apenas una semana después de esta entrevista, Susan Sarandon (Nueva York, 80 años) fue detenida a las puertas de la ONU en Nueva York. Protestaba, junto a otras actrices como Hannah Einbinder o Cynthia Nixon, contra la comparecencia en la Asamblea del primer ministro israelí, Benjamin Netanyahu. No era la primera vez que la detenían y quizás no sea la última. Susan Sarandon, actriz en más de 100 películas, ha protagonizado éxitos de Hollywood como El cliente, Quédate a mi lado o Las brujas de Eastwick; películas de culto comoThe Rocky Horror Picture Show o Thelma y Louise; y películas comprometidas como Pena de muerte, que le valió un Oscar. Ha aparecido en la serie Friends y ha rodado con Louis Malle. Porque Sarandon escoge sus proyectos como vive, de forma desprejuiciada, con una mezcla de curiosidad y desafío: “Cuando leo un guion quiero que me conmueva. Quiero que el personaje sea algo que no haya hecho antes. Está muy bien si hay un director con una buena trayectoria, pero a veces son directores nuevos. Es genial si te pueden pagar, pero a veces no pueden”. Es el caso de su último proyecto, The Accompanist (aún pendiente de título en español), donde interpreta a Sylvia, una madre de acogida atormentada y excéntrica.
Fjord is a movie about having your children taken by the state. The tone is calm, clinical, measured, and by the books. No violence is depicted on screen. People rarely even raise their voices. Everything unfolds in the distant and impersonal style of bureaucratic procedure.
But the movie, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is utterly enraging, a fierce, ferocious, gut-punch of a film. It's a haunting portrait of the consequences of unchecked state power, especially the kind that purports to be for one's own good.
Much of the film's power comes from the fact that it simply depicts what happens when a person, or a family, comes under suspicion by the state. There's no commentary, no lecturing, no big speech at the end. Instead, writer-director Cristian Mungiu, a Romanian filmmaker whose sympathies are clearly with the family, simply shows us, unblinking, what it's like to lose one's rights and freedoms at the hands of a bureaucracy that respects no power and no authority but its own.
When the film begins, the Gheorghiu family—a mother (Renate Reinsve), father (Sebastian Stan), and their five children—moves from Romania to a small town in Norway. Soon, school authorities notice the children have bruises. We in the audience know the bruises weren't caused by the parents, but the children, who don't speak Norwegian, give conflicting statements. After being brought in for questioning by the police, the father admits to sometimes spanking or lightly slapping his children on the behind, for correction. In order to go free, he's required to sign a statement that contorts his words, making his admission of spanking sound like something more sinister and violent.
He's also a conservative Christian, which has caused some social tension: He's played Christian music, without singing the lyrics, on a piano at school, a no-no in a state that strictly curbs proselytizing. School officials are concerned that he requires his children to pray and study the Bible; the children aren't allowed to play video games or watch YouTube. One of his children spoke out against homosexuality in school during a session on gender. There's suspicion among the teachers and administrators that he might be indoctrinating his kids.
So the school authorities alert Child Protection, Norway's powerful family bureaucracy. They remove the kids, including a breastfeeding baby, from their parents' custody and place them in three separate foster homes. At first the parents are allowed no visitation, and they are not told where the children are located.
Then they go to court, initially for a civil trial, but with a criminal trial for child abuse looming in the background. As the legal process proceeds, they are told repeatedly that essentially anything they do to fight for their children will make the outcome worse. The state wants compliance and admission that they wrongly abused their kids. But if they admit to abusing their kids, doesn't that give the state evidence they are unfit to parent? Doesn't that make the criminal trial more likely to go against them? As their own, mostly sympathetic lawyer, informs the two parents, "Frankly unless you convince them that you understand and regret it, the risk of you going to prison is considerable."
Later, at the trial, a representative from Child Protection calmly says there's no reason to believe children might be better off with their biological parents, noting the family's restrictions on video games, internet, and YouTube. In their view, the state knows what's best for the kids; the culturally backward, religious conservative parents do not. It's not for nothing that one character, a conservative political figure from Romania who has come to help publicize the situation, analogizes the power of Child Protection to the power of the Soviet state.
Part of what makes Fjord so effective is its lack of sermonizing. You don't have to be a trad, a conservative, a family values evangelical, to see that what's happening to the Gheorghiu family is simply wrong. They are railroaded by an imperious bureaucratic state that distorts reality to turn them into villains, with the goal of separating children from their parents and each other. Who are the real child abusers here?
The story is fictionalized, but not hypothetical. Fjord is based on the true story of the Bodnariu family, conservative Romanian immigrants whose five children were taken from them by the Norwegian state in the 2010s on similarly flimsy justifications. The family eventually left Norway. After watching Fjord, it isn't hard to see why.
The magic of cinema is made in the most unexpected places. In an industrial park on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, past small woods and residential neighborhoods, several gray warehouses hide eagles, castles, monsters and mice. You wouldn’t guess it, but there sits Laika which, alongside the British studio Aardman, is the most famous film studio specialized in stop motion animation.
Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan and Carla Gugino are also featured in the latest look at David Fincher's follow-up to 2019's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.'
Olivia Wilde returns to the screen and the director’s chair with 'The Invite,' a comedy about secrets, desire and the cracks that emerge when a couple believes they know each other a little too well. The film, in which she stars alongside Penélope Cruz and which is already generating Oscar buzz, marks the return of one of the most controversial figures in recent Hollywood history.
An actress turned director, outspoken feminist and central character in one of the entertainment industry's most talked-about sagas, the 42-year-old filmmaker has gone from being the young doctor on 'House' to embodying the contradictions of an industry that applauds women for breaking the rules, but does not always forgive them for doing so on their own terms.
If there is one thing Wilde has made clear during the promotional tour for 'The Invite,' it is her fascination with Penélope Cruz. The director and actress has even joked that she has not washed her hands since touching those of the Madrid-born star, who plays a free-spirited woman capable of turning her neighbors’ relationship upside down. The couple next door are played by Wilde herself and Seth Rogen.
The two have displayed their easy rapport throughout recent promotional appearances, with Wilde at one point describing her co-star as “the sexiest woman alive.” In one scene, Cruz unexpectedly kisses Wilde. The filmmaker has admitted that she completely lost her composure, her mind went blank and she fell hopelessly in love with her co-star.
Wilde is one of the filmmakers who has openly spoken about the difficulties she encounters when casting her films and trying to find actresses who have not undergone cosmetic procedures.
“As a director, I now am constantly searching for actresses who can still move their faces. And it’s not easy!” she said. “I don’t blame them. I’m a product of the same machine, I’m under the same pressures; I get it.”
“I just pray for technology to allow treatments that just aren’t so aggressive. Like, there’s something so medieval about all these things. Can’t someone come up with something better than Botox?” she continued.
For Wilde, the issue is also personal. In recent years, her own public appearances have been met with cruel remarks about her looks, her age and speculation about possible cosmetic procedures.
In 2026, photos of the actress became fodder for mockery on social media, particularly because of her extreme thinness. Wilde herself responded with humor, acknowledging that in those viral images she really did look “like a little dead sarcophagus man.”
On Jan. 6, 2021, the world woke up to an image that would dominate headlines for months: Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles walking hand in hand. Wilde was directing her second film, 'Don't Worry Darling,' and Styles, the former One Direction member, was one of its stars.
The couple’s 10-year age gap, the singer’s global fame and Wilde’s recent separation turned the relationship into a media phenomenon. The spiral soon became impossible to stop: Shia LaBeouf’s departure from the project, rumors that the film’s lead actress, Florence Pugh, had a strained relationship with Wilde and was unhappy with the displays of affection between the director and Styles during filming, and the supposedly viral incident in which Styles appeared to spit on Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festival.
Wilde has since acknowledged that she perhaps should have pushed back against some of the allegations. At the same time, she has recalled that she was experiencing moments of great happiness in her private life.
“ It was like a tornado was right outside the door, and if you were inside you were like, ‘It’s so nice,’” she said. “And you open the door and be like, ‘Ah,’ like a fucking like cow and a tractor would fly by.”
Wilde grew up in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., in a household where current affairs were effectively a member of the family. Her parents, journalists Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, hosted dinner parties attended by guests as prominent as Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg and writer Salman Rushdie.
Her mother worked as a war correspondent and went on to become a renowned investigative journalist before taking her career in a different direction. In 2018, at the age of 66, she ran as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, with her daughter’s public support. She lost to the Republican candidate, but her trajectory left Wilde with a powerful example of political engagement and reinvention.
The role that changed everything for Olivia Wilde, who was born Olivia Cockburn and later adopted the surname Wilde in homage to Oscar Wilde, was that of internist Remy Hadley, better known as Thirteen to both Dr. House and the millions of viewers of the medical drama.
Joining the show's fourth season turned her into an international star and one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses. After starring in big-budget films such as 'Tron: Legacy' and 'Cowboys & Aliens,' both of which met with limited critical and commercial success, Wilde later said she felt exploited and objectified by the film industry.
“I had become numb to the fact that every meeting I went on — with men and women, by the way — I was going to be judged on my physical appearance,” she said.
Wilde’s feminist commitment predates the controversies that would later put her at the center of the headlines. In 2017, when the #MeToo movement brought the industry’s abuses of power into the spotlight, she joined the growing chorus of voices calling for change. She also became one of the public faces of Time’s Up, the initiative launched by women in Hollywood to combat sexual harassment and promote safer workplaces, and spoke at the 2018 Women’s March in Los Angeles.
“This business belongs to all of us,” she said that year, advocating for an industry in which her peers could work without fear and without having to compete for opportunities that had historically been denied to them.
Wilde’s debut as a feature-film director came in 2019 with a low-budget comedy that quickly achieved cult status among a generation of moviegoers: 'Booksmart.' The film, which follows two high school students on one final night of partying before graduation, was a hit with both critics and audiences.
Wilde had long wanted to stop being just another cog in the industry and take a more active role in the creative process.
“I always assumed acting was the way in, because for many young women … they’re told, ‘You love movies — you should be a movie star,’" she told 'Variety.' "No one tells a little girl, ‘Why don’t you become a director?’ It’s just not a part of the conversation. But if a little boy says he loves movies, it’s like, ‘Maybe one day you’ll direct. Maybe you’ll be the next Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese.’”
“Romantic and insane.” That is how Olivia Wilde describes her first great love story, which began in 2003 when she was just 19 years old.
At Burning Man, the unconventional arts and music festival held in Nevada’s desert, the young Wilde said “I do” to her boyfriend of only a few months, filmmaker Tao Ruspoli, the son of an Italian prince. By her own account, it took only seconds for her to realize that the ceremony might have been a little too impulsive.
“Immediately, I was like, 'Wait, what the fuck did I just do?'” she remembers thinking.
The marriage ended in divorce in 2011, although the two have remained on good terms.
The same year she finalized her first divorce, in 2011, Wilde met the man who would become the father of her two children: actor Jason Sudeikis (from 'Ted Lasso'). The two met at a 'Saturday Night Live' party, where Sudeikis was working at the time, and went on to build a family with their children, Otis and Daisy.
In November 2020, after several years together and a long engagement, they ended their relationship, setting off a custody dispute that would later make international headlines. In April 2022, during a film industry convention in Las Vegas, Wilde was interrupted onstage when a person approached to hand her legal documents related to the custody case.
Although Sudeikis maintained that he had no knowledge of how or when the papers would be served, Wilde described the incident as “incredibly traumatizing.”
In her day-to-day life, Wilde is often spotted on the streets of New York wearing far simpler outfits, the kind that are easy for ordinary women to take inspiration from. The look pictured here is a perfect example: a blazer, a basic T-shirt, an oversized bag, trousers and sneakers.
It is the sort of outfit anyone might wear to the office or while running errands.
On the red carpet, Wilde has also earned international attention for her distinctive sense of style. Her looks strike a balance between understated elegance, as seen in this high-necked black Saint Laurent gown with structured shoulders, and a more daring sensibility, whether through sheer fabrics or outfits that showcase her sculpted midriff.
Tailored suits are another staple of her wardrobe, further proving her flair for sharp suiting. The architect behind a style that has grown increasingly sophisticated and eye-catching over the years is Karla Welch, who also styles Tracee Ellis Ross and Sarah Paulson.
The actress is also a favorite of fashion houses with markedly different aesthetics, including Chloé (pictured here in one of the brand’s designs), Saint Laurent, Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton and Valentino.
Her regular appearances at international fashion weeks, particularly in Paris and New York, have made her one of the celebrity names every brand wants seated in its front row.
Earlier this October, Wilde answered the call of fashion’s designer and label of the moment, stepping out in an updated tweed suit by Matthieu Blazy for Chanel. Elegant yet contemporary, the look demonstrated how her trademark bohemian, '70s-inflected style can also take a decidedly classic turn.
It seems that for Wilde, neither in fashion nor in life, much is beyond reach.
Success may have taken its time, but Monica Barbaro has firmly established herself as one of Hollywood’s most promising talents. After years of searching for her breakthrough, the 36-year-old Californian first drew widespread attention as a fighter pilot in 'Top Gun: Maverick' before winning over the industry with her portrayal of Joan Baez in 'A Complete Unknown,' a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination. Now, with high-profile projects on the horizon such as the much-anticipated 'Artificial,' a romance with fellow actor Andrew Garfield, and a personal style that balances sophistication with effortless ease, Barbaro has become one of the names worth watching, both on and off the screen.
Acting was not part of Monica Barbaro’s earliest ambitions. Her mother, a professional dancer, enrolled all three of her children in ballet classes. Although she discovered through small school theater productions that acting was her true passion, her family’s encouragement led her to focus exclusively on ballet. She enrolled in the dance program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, one of the most prestigious performing arts schools in the United States, and initially approached acting only through elective courses.
Today, with the dream she first nurtured as a teenager finally fulfilled, Monica Barbaro is grateful for what dance brought to her craft as an actress. “Dance gave me a completely different way into character. People reveal themselves through their body language,” she said. In the photograph, taken in 2018, the actress wears a floral dress by Brock Collection.
Monica Barbaro logged more than 40 hours of flight time to portray a military pilot in 'Top Gun: Maverick,' her first major role in a big-budget Hollywood production. During filming, she even shot some scenes aboard a two-seat F/A-18, enduring forces of up to eight Gs, and went so far as to earn her pilot’s license. All in pursuit of meeting the exacting standards set by Tom Cruise, who, she says, has become one of her most important mentors in Hollywood. "He'll see a person, see their potential and just bring out the best in them," she said of Cruise.
The role that definitively established Monica Barbaro as one of Hollywood’s most exciting breakthrough talents was her portrayal of Joan Baez in 'A Complete Unknown,' the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet. Barbaro sings and plays guitar herself in the film, despite not knowing a single chord when she landed the part. After months of intensive preparation, her portrayal of Baez emerged as one of the film’s standout performances, earning her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Chalamet later explained that the filmmakers were looking for an actress with gravity and quiet power, someone capable of holding her own opposite his Dylan and even intimidating him slightly. Although the Oscar ultimately went to Zoe Saldaña for 'Emilia Pérez,' the nomination confirmed that Barbaro had moved beyond the status of rising star to become one of the defining talents of a new generation of actors.
Parallel to her professional breakthrough, which unfolded amid the awards ceremonies and industry parties surrounding the Oscars, the California-born actress embarked on her first high-profile public relationship. In January 2025, entertainment media began reporting rumors of a romance with actor Andrew Garfield, best known for films such as 'The Social Network.' Those rumors have gradually been borne out by the couple’s repeated public appearances together. Although both have been notably protective of their privacy, Garfield has spoken warmly about Barbaro, calling her a “supremely talented” actress. “I think she is truly incredible,” he said. “I could wax lyrical more, but I'll leave it there.”
In July 2025, the couple made their first official public appearance together at the Wimbledon Championships in London. They embraced the tournament’s traditional aesthetic with coordinated all-white looks, and Barbaro opted for an outfit by Ralph Lauren.
Fate would have it that their romance also blossomed on a film set, as both are part of the cast of 'Artificial,' the highly anticipated new film from Luca Guadagnino, the director of 'Call Me by Your Name.' Widely seen as a potential awards-season contender, the film is based on the story of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and the turbulent days surrounding the brief dismissal and subsequent reinstatement of its controversial chief executive, Sam Altman, who is played by Andrew Garfield. Monica Barbaro, meanwhile, portrays Mira Murati, the company’s former chief technology officer and one of the most influential figures in the artificial intelligence industry, widely regarded as a pioneering leader in the field.
“[Andrew Garfield] is one of the best actors of his generation, our generation,” the actress has said of her co-star. “I just learned a lot from his approach to the material and to developing character, and I felt very fortunate to get to witness that in real time.” Barbaro has also said that working alongside him pushed her to raise her own game. She said she thought: “Oh shit, I really have to step up my game and make sure I'm a proper, legitimate scene partner.”
For years, Monica Barbaro struggled to find her place in an industry that seemed unsure how to categorize her. The daughter of an Italian American father and a mother of Mexican, English and German descent, she has spoken about being repeatedly encouraged to lean into her Latina heritage in ways that felt inauthentic to her. At the same time, she feared the opposite risk: “neutralizing of myself to not offend anybody.” As a child, she endured racist taunts; as an actress, she sometimes lost out on roles because she was deemed not “ethnic enough.” Rather than choosing between labels, Barbaro has embraced the space in between. "I don't belong in either" — as in either side of her parentage — "but I do belong in this mixed territory."
The actress describes herself as “a romantic and a workaholic.” “I’ve never given my life over to it, which, as a woman, I’m quite proud of. But there’s also the other side of that coin, which is: You can get to a point in your life where you wake up and you look around and you’re sort of like, Oh, have I been self-protecting by [adopting] so much autonomy and independence? I’m definitely shifting some of that perspective now,” she told 'InStyle.'
After graduating from university, with neither steady work nor savings to fall back on, Monica Barbaro moved back across the country to her hometown of San Francisco. There, she spent nearly a decade juggling minor television roles and commercial work, far from the sudden, youthful breakthroughs enjoyed by some rising stars. She had to wait until 2022, when Tom Cruise came calling and changed the course of her career. That same year, her rising profile earned her an invitation to Vanity Fair’s Oscars after-party, where she attended wearing a design by Elie Saab.
Monica Barbaro has spoken openly about why she is uncomfortable using her appearance as a selling point on screen or showing more skin than a story genuinely requires. “One of the very first things I did was a project that I lost the job because I wouldn’t be topless in it,” she told the U.S. edition of InStyle. At the time, she was a background performer with a small, non-speaking role and could not see any narrative reason for the nudity. In the end, she was rehired on her own terms, with her shirt buttoned up. “I’ve not gotten naked in anything I’ve done because I haven’t worked on something where that would be a necessity to the story,” she added.
Her style evolution over the past few years has been striking. Her fashion résumé now includes a series of looks that feel both contemporary and effortless, among them the oversized white suit she paired with a Jacquemus handbag when she was photographed strolling through New York last winter.
Last year, Monica Barbaro attended the Met Gala for the first time, further cementing her rising status within the industry. For the occasion, the actress once again turned to Dior, embracing the glamour of the 1950s and the New Look silhouette with the maison’s iconic Bar jacket, leather gloves and a boater hat. She seemed to belong to another era, while proving herself perfectly in tune with the event’s dress code.
Although she says her everyday uniform tends to be simple and classic, built around Levi’s jeans, loafers and T-shirts, Monica Barbaro knows how to command the attention of the fashion press when promotional duties call. One of her most recent and most daring looks was this ensemble by designer Sandy Liang, which she wore in New York while promoting 'One Night Only.'
“I love to play dress up. I take red carpets as an opportunity to play, in whatever way feels fitting for the project I'm promoting,” she told the U.S. edition of 'Vogue.' In the image, Monica Barbaro wears a striking white gown from Jonathan Anderson’s new era at Dior.
Precisamente en el rodaje de la cinta fue fotografiada luciendo un atrevido minivestido de lentejuelas color esmeralda de Alex Perry con muchas papeletas para convertirse en uno de los más icónicos de su trabajo en pantalla.
The actress has developed a close relationship with Dior, one of her preferred labels for red carpets and high-profile events. Naturally, she is also a regular guest at the fashion house’s runway shows. For the brand’s Autumn/Winter 2024-25 presentation, she chose this striking white dress, a look that neatly encapsulates her style duality: sensual and romantic in equal measure.
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