By Vic Medina
| Published
We have our first extended look at Netflix Blondthe controversial new film about the life of Marilyn Monroe, with Ana de Armas (knives out) to the head. As you can see in the newly released trailer, the 34-year-old Cuban actress pins Marilyn’s gaze and breathy voice with almost creepy precision. Director Andrew Dominic (Kill them softly) shows incredible attention to detail and authenticity, as nearly every scene in the Blond The trailer is based on a real photo or movie clip of Marilyn. The film premieres on Netflix worldwide on September 23, 2022.
Based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the film is the first of this decade to obtain an NC-17 rating, due to its strong sexual content. Although Ana de Armas has said that she promised to provide an authentic portrait of Monroe, Blond is described as a fictionalized account of true events, choosing instead to focus on Norma Jeane Baker, the woman behind the Hollywood-created Marilyn Monroe façade. Director Dominik says the film itself doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but instead tells his story through an “avalanche of images and events,” according to People.
Interestingly, with the exception of Ana de Armas and a few others, blonde the credits do not name some of the real-life figures depicted in the film by name. Joe DiMaggio (Marilyn’s second husband), for example, appears as “The Ex-Athlete” (played by Bobby Cannavale). Another husband, Arthur Miller, is played by Adrien Brody and is only known as “The Playwright”. Caspar Phillipson, who plays John F. Kennedy, is credited only as “The President”. Dominik has not said why this is so, if it is an artistic choice or because it is a fictional account of real people and real events. The film also stars Julianne Nicholson as Monroe’s mother, Garrett Dillahunt (fear of the walking dead), Scott McNairy and Sara Paxton. Dominic has fiance that Blond he won’t shy away from the ugliest episodes in Monroe’s life, which reportedly include sexual assault, and will likely “offend everyone” with his NC-17 rating. However, she admits that despite Netflix’s requests to tone down the sexual content, she “thought we had colored within the lines” regarding the content and was surprised by the rating.
Ana de Armas is almost the same age as Marilyn Monroe at the time of her death in 1962 (36 years old), and said Netflix Queue who spent almost a year studying Marilyn films, interviews and photos to bring to life Blond. “I read Joyce’s novel, I studied hundreds of photographs, videos, audio recordings, movies, everything I could get my hands on. 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.”
Ana de Armas’s career rise has been meteoric, as she has become one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood less than ten years after her English-language film debut. After graduating from the National Theater School in Havana, she appeared in film and television in Cuba and Spain before coming to Los Angeles in 2014 and learning to speak English in no time. She first came to the attention of Hollywood in 2016, with roles in stone hands Y dogs of warbut it was his role as Joi the hologram in 2017 blade runner 2049 that put her on the road to stardom. Her recent appearances on Netflix the gray man, knives outand the James Bond movie No strings attached to die solidified her place on Hollywood’s A-list. After the release of Blonde, she will start working on Dancera john wick-derivative film in which she plays a murderess looking for revenge.