Cuban-Spanish actress Ana de Armas teared up when discussing her lead role in Andrew Dominik’s Blonde today in Venice, saying she felt Marilyn Monroe was “very close” to the production during the 2019 shoot.
“All of us feel so much respect and responsibility to do good and to honour her,” said de Armas, speaking at the press conference before the Netflix film’s world premiere this evening. “Everyone knew that we were in her service – doing something bigger than us, more special than just a film about her.
“She was all I thought about, all I dreamed about, all I could talk about. She was with me.
“It was beautiful; she was happy, but she would also throw things off the walls sometimes and get mad when she didn’t like something,” said de Armas of Monroe’s character. “I truly believe she was very close to us, she was with us [during production]. Being in the same places that she was, filming in her house – it was a very strong sensation, there was something in the air. She was approving of what we were doing. I didn’t want to protect myself from that.”
de Armas shed tears when asked about what the role will do to her career. “I did this movie to push myself and because I thought it was a gift to myself; I didn’t do the movie to make other people change their opinion about me,” she responded. “Whatever happens, it’s the experience I take with me. This movie changed my life. It will be what it will be.”
Blonde is a fictionalised chronicle of the inner life of Monroe, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 book of the same name. It is scheduled for release via Netflix on September 28 in many territories including the United States and UK and Ireland.
Legacy
de Armas’ co-star Adrien Brody believes the film will help the legacy of the US icon.
“The fact that she’s so revered and so loved by men and women alike, and yet her inner struggle and her sadness and all the unresolved traumatic moments in her life never left her is almost criminal to me,” said Brody. “We’re very fortunate to have people like Andrew and Ana who are able to pour in their artistic sensibilities to represent something that is lost upon most people.
“It’s very meaningful; it’s good for her legacy and good for us as a community.”
Australian director Dominik said the film “fits into a long tradition of ‘female anxiety films’.”
“We were chasing her ghost around,” said Dominik of the shoot. “We started shooting on August 4, which was the anniversary of her death. The room she dies in [in the film] is the room she died in; her dust is everywhere in Los Angeles. It definitely took on elements of being like a séance.”
Dominik also said the biggest challenge of the film was “raising the money”. The filmmaker had been working on the project since 2010, with several studios having passed on it in that time before Netflix came on board in 2016.
Earlier this year, Dominik told Screen International how the company had told him it would put the film in cinemas for eight months before it landed on the platform.
In a wide-ranging interview, he was bullish in the face of the NC-17 rating, calling it “a bunch of horseshit”; but also said he wanted “to go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story.”
The film picture-locked last year, after Netflix insisted on bringing in Tenet editor Jennifer Lame to do additional editing alongside Dominik.
No comments yet