‘Blonde’: Marilyn Monroe Struggles With the Pressure of Being ‘Marilyn Monroe’ in New Trailer
Ana de Armas’ Marilyn Monroe begins to unravel in the newest look at the upcoming Netflix film Blonde
Netflix has shared the first full trailer for Blonde, the controversial Marilyn Monroe film starring Ana de Armas as the film legend.
Following the film’s teaser in June, the new preview — soundtracked by Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” — centers around a conversation between de Armas’ blonde bombshell and Bobby Cannavale’s Joe DiMaggio where the Yankees star asks Monroe about how she got her start in movies.
“I guess I was discovered. I know you’re supposed to get used to it, but I just can’t,” she tells him. “I play Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe. I can’t face doing another scene with Marilyn Monroe.”
Throughout the trailer, scenes from Monroe’s life flash on the screen, but behind the iconic moments from film history, Monroe struggled with her identity and the pressures of fame. “Marilyn doesn’t exist. When I come out of my dressing room, I’m Norma Jeane. I’m still her when the camera’s rolling. Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen,” she tells DiMaggio.
Directed by Andrew Dominik and based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name, Blonde arrives on the streaming service on Sept. 28 (and not Sept. 23, as the teaser previously advertised).
The new trailer also showcases the lengths that de Armas went through to embody the platinum blonde icon.
“We worked on this film for hours, every single day for almost a year,” de Armas previously said of Blonde to Netflix Queue. “I read Joyce’s novel, studied hundreds of photographs, videos, audio recordings, films — anything I could get my hands on. Every scene is inspired by an existing photograph. We’d pore over every detail in the photo and debate what was happening in it. The first question was always, ‘What was Norma Jeane [Baker, Monroe’s birth name] feeling here?’ We wanted to tell the human side of her story. Fame is what made Marilyn the most visible person in the world, but it also made Norma the most invisible.”
“Andrew’s ambitions were very clear from the start — to present a version of Marilyn Monroe’s life through her lens,” de Armas added. “He wanted the world to experience what it actually felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane. I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen.”
From Rolling Stone US.
