Monica B in NYC

But wait! Ladies going outside is a coast-to-coast phenomenon! While Kristen Stewart and Dakota Johnson were holding it down in LA, Monica Barbaro is in New York City, undoubtedly getting ready for the One Night Only (aka “the Purge sex movie”) press run. Honestly, a woman in a button down is SUCH a good look. There is almost no way to style it wrong.

Checking in on Monica, and she and Andrew Garfield—with his newly, suspiciously lush hairline—were back at Wimbledon earlier this month, after hard launching there last summer. They’ve also been in Rome and Las Vegas, so they’re still going strong.

Professionally, she is staying booked and busy. Of course, she co-stars with Garfield in Luca Guadagnino’s film Artificial, about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Amazon MGM dropped the film earlier this year, but NEON has officially rescued it. Garfield was asked about the chicanery at the New York premiere of The Magic Faraway Tree, and he gave a very diplomatic response: “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. And I think Neon’s a really, really exciting home for it.” 

I cannot wait until AFTER this movie comes out and then everyone can talk honestly about this experience. I am SURE Andrew Garfield has more thoughts than that. This is the right answer to give at an event to promote another movie, but at some point, let’s come back to this and see where everyone stands once there are no more commercial stakes for Artificial on the line.

Back to Monica, though, she has also signed onto the Ocean’s 11 prequel with Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper (who is also writing and directing the film). I am glad to see Monica Barbaro getting good work, especially since I predicted her first Oscar nomination for A Complete Unknown, and now I am fully vested in her career trajectory, but I am also still lowkey mad that we never got another Ocean’s film with Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett and their crew of lady thieves. Just a reminder, Ocean’s 8 made almost $300 million against a sub-$100 million budget, it made money, but we also never got sequels to Spy or Salt or Atomic Blonde. It’s almost like the bar is harder to clear when the potential franchise is carried by women.