This movie changed my life: Ana de Armas
Andrew Dominik had been trying to make a movie about Marilyn Monroe for over a decade.
The film wouldn't be a biopic, but an experiential portrait delving into the psyche of Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane. It kept falling apart, but the New Zealand native couldn't let it go. Then he found Ana de Armas, and, he said, the movie came alive.
"It was like love at first sight," Dominik said Thursday, before the world premiere of "Blonde" at the Venice International Film Festival. "When the right person walks through the door, you know it."
The nearly three-hour epic is based on a work of biographical fiction by Joyce Carol Oates and examines the public and private life of the Hollywood icon from her troubled childhood as Norma Jeane to her global stardom as Marilyn Monroe and various relationships along the way, from her mother (Julianne Nicholson) to her marriages to Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody).
"I did this movie to push myself... to make other people change their opinion about me," said the actress, through some tears. "This movie changed my life."
"Blonde" has been hotly anticipated for some time: For taking on a figure like Monroe in an experimental way, for its rating, the first ever NC-17 movie that Netflix has made, a designation set by the Motion Picture Association that forbids those younger than 17 from watching the film in the theater. There's also curiosity around de Armas's performance. The Cuba-born actor worked with a dialect coach for a year to prepare.


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