Ana De Armas’ Marilyn Monroe Struggles With Stardom In First Full ‘Blonde’ Trailer
Monroe moves between being a Hollywood sex symbol and a tortured artist in new “Blonde” footage.
Following a Blonde teaser released earlier this summer, the first official trailer for Netflix’s buzzed-about NC-17 Marilyn Monroe biopic starring Ana de Armas depicts the actress and sex symbol in the middle of an identity crisis.
Set to a hauntingly resonant rendition of Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” the footage focuses on her conversation with Bobby Cannavale’s Joe DiMaggio, the Yankees star to whom Monroe was briefly married.
“I guess I was discovered. I know you’re supposed to get used to it, but I just can’t,” she tells him of her early acting career. “I play Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe. I can’t face doing another scene with Marilyn Monroe.”
As the couple’s talk continues, scenes transition from showcasing the glamorous life of a movie star to depicting the trials of a tortured artist, including institutionalization, reclusion, and a dramatic, possibly drug-induced fainting episode.
“Marilyn doesn’t exist. When I come out of my dressing room, I’m Norma Jeane [Baker]. I’m still her when the camera’s rolling. Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen,” she says.
Based on the bestselling novel by Joyce Carol Oates and directed by Andrew Dominik, the movie aims to reimagine the complicated life of Monroe by “blurring the lines of fact and fiction,” according to Netflix’s official synopsis.
De Armas shines as Monroe in every piece of Blonde content that’s been released, something that she and the film crew went through great lengths to achieve.
“We worked on this film for hours, every single day for almost a year,” de Armas said of the undertaking in an interview with 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 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.”
Blonde arrives on Netflix September 28.
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