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THE REAL MARILYN MONROE

BLONDE

Think you’ve heard Marilyn Monroe’s story before? Not like this, you haven’t. Blonde is a bold new Netflix film that turns the biopic on its head, depicting in graphic fashion the rise and fall of Hollywood’s most tragic icon.

Exploring the tension between the real Marilyn and her movie-star alter ego, the fictional Blonde looks at how the dreams of Norma Jeane Mortensen (Monroe’s real name) turned into Marilyn’s hell. ‘It’s a sprawling, emotional nightmare, fairytale-type movie,’ says director Andrew Dominik. ‘It’s a story about an orphan who gets lost in the woods.’

Based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates and over a decade in the making (Naomi Watts was first attached to the role), Blonde stars No Time To Die’s Ana de Armas as Marilyn (main image). Emphasising the tragic, it jumps in and out of Monroe’s life, from her childhood with an abusive parent to rising star and on to her demise due to the toll taken by fame, mental health problems and men.

With some scenes in black and white and some in colour, the film’s intention is to give a ‘sensorial and emotional experience,’ says de Armas. ‘Dominik wanted the world to experience what it felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane. I found it the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story I’d ever seen.’ It took a team of experts to turn

Cuban-born de Armas into Monroe – her brunette locks were hidden under wigs, her hazel eyes turned blue with contact lenses, and a year of dialect coaching helped her master Monroe’s voice. The final transformation is uncanny, and de Armas, 34, says she felt Monroe’s presence while filming. ‘There was something in the air and I think she approved of what we were doing.’

Filmed in Monroe’s hometown of Los Angeles on a stop-and-start schedule due to Covid delays, the movie includes scenes shot on Malibu beaches and in famous restaurant Musso & Frank Grill. But most eerily, Dominik also got access to Monroe’s home in LA, and was

It’s a sprawling, emotional nightmare, fairytale-type movie about an orphan who’s lost in the woods

able to film in the very room where she passed away. ‘The room she dies in [in the movie] is the room she died in,’ he says.

Two of Monroe’s husbands also feature. Bobby Cannavale plays baseball legend Joe Dimaggio, with Adrien Brody (inset left) as playwright Arthur Miller, her third and final spouse.

But it’s de Armas’s movie. ‘I did this movie to push myself and because I thought it was a gift,’ she says. ‘Whatever happens, it’s the experience I take with me. This movie has changed my life, so it will be what it will be.’

Vicki Power From Wednesday, Netflix

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2022-09-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-09-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

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