The accolades continue. Last week de Armas was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. Although there’s already been controversy over the nominees in that category, none of that has revolved around de Armas, whose nomination was expected and well deserved
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To say an actor disappears in a role has become a cliche. But that’s what Cuban actress Ana de Armas finesses as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde,” now streaming on Netflix. “Blonde” is directed by Andrew Dominik and is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel, which is a hefty 700-plus pages.
The movie is 2 hours and 45 minutes and de Armas is in every frame of this deep-dive immersion into Marilyn’s sad childhood and tortured psyche. Critics of the film say it is too focused on the darkness of her life and exploits her again without touching on the joy and intelligence she conveyed in her films, including classics like “Some Like it Hot,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Niagara.”
This is to miss the point. “Blonde” is not a biopic. It’s faithful to the tone and intent of the book. In a New Yorker interview in September, Oates gave the film her seal of approval and said of de Armas: “She did a superb job. She becomes Marilyn Monroe.”
De Armas, who has worked hard to promote the film, recently did a post-screening Q&A at the Marilyn MonroeMarilyn Monroe for Guild members, mainly actors, and following are highlights:
Question: On preparing for the role:
“The real, deep, deep work was more focused on discovering who Norma Jean was…, So that was pretty much our focus. Andrew (Dominik) and I… Obviously, we started with the novel and then the script, and just digging into, peeling all of these layers, and finding who this real woman was before she became this massive movie star. And understanding, for me also, why of all of this mannerisms, and her way of talking and approaching people, and her way of the relationships she had and how she would interact with life and other people around her.”
Question: Director Andrew Dominik worked 11 years on the project. Did he always have de Armas in mind as Marilyn? How did she get involved?
“I don’t think he had me in mind the whole time because 11 years is a long time. I feel like other actresses have been attached before, and for some reason the project didn’t come together, and I just happened to be in this crazy movie called ‘Knock Knock’ that Andrew saw on TV. And that’s when he thought, “This actress could play Marilyn Monroe.” But that took three years for him, from that moment when he saw the movie to my audition. I guess my agent didn’t think I could do it, so he never put us in touch.
So yeah, I started talking to Andrew a year before the movie started filming. The movie was not green lit. I read the script. We met. I think the first thing I told Andrew was like, “This is a horror movie. This is a nightmare.” And we went from there, and I knew I had something very special in my hands. And also at a personal level, and for my own growth as an artist, I thought it was a incredible opportunity for me to get to work in this.”
Question: The movie goes into very dark places in Marilyn’s life and career, including a producer and agent sexually abusing her. How de Armas reach those dark places and could she relate to any of Marilyn’s experiences in her career:
“There hasn’t been a situation in my life, luckily, that could compare to what she went through…. I have been in other situations where, had that escalated a little bit more, could have been easily any of those situations. And if you add to that, that you don’t have a great support system, or parents, or people that love you and that are there for you and you’re all alone, what can you do? … I just had to think about that and put myself in that place, and, if anything, this movie had made me feel way more empathy for how much we give up of ourselves. The exposure and the level of invasion or the expectations of people or the audience or the industry that you, it’s assumed that you’re signing up for that as well, if that makes sense.”
Question: About Monroe’s struggle with mental illness shown in the film:
“Right now, talking about trauma or mental illness or drugs or therapy or depression or suicide or all of those things, it’s a thing we talk about and we have help, and then she didn’t have that. She didn’t even know how to cope with that. So I don’t really know. I don’t think I’m a method actor. I don’t stay in character. I don’t approach my roles like that, but I consider myself a very empathetic person and that’s the way I really approach it. I think maybe not being American helped me in the sense of not putting myself so much pressure into the icon and I just saw her as a woman. And I approached it that way also because I wanted to finally do something for Norma and not (just) for Marilyn.”
Question: On the continuing exploitation of Monroe and what de Armas hopes audiences take away from the film:
“She was not just that one thing that we’ve been told and shown and replicated, and people keep making money off of her and taking and taking and taking, and the other side wasn’t seen. And of course, she wasn’t always sad or depressed or abused or all of those things, but that also happened. That needs to be acknowledged because otherwise the tragedy of her dying at 36 years old wouldn’t have happened. So that was my approach, it was just really feeling what, trying to imagine, to feel what she was going through was not really great. Other than really doing a deep work of observation, I really had to study her films a lot just to get why she was, had so many movements in her face and lips and the way she talked and the breathiness of everything was so specific, and I wanted to understand why was she doing that. So that was kind of the technical part, but the heart was just the heart.”
