Playing Marilyn Monroe has to be nerve-wracking. The golden age star is one of the most recognizable stars in Hollywood history, was renowned for her looks, and is inevitably going to attract incredible scrutiny. But, judging by this teaser trailer for Netflix’s upcoming movie Blonde, Knives Out and No Time to Die star Ana de Armas has knocked it out of the park.
Written and directed by The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford‘s Andrew Dominik, Blonde will take us through Monroe’s early days to her tragic death. Dominik has said he sees her as “the great female icon of the 20th century” and that she was essentially consumed by her own public image. Speaking with Collider in March 2019, he expanded on this by saying that Blonde:
“Tells the story of how a childhood trauma shapes an adult who’s split between a public and a private self. It’s basically the story of every human being, but it’s using a certain sense of association that we have with something very familiar, just through media exposure. It takes all of those things and turns the meanings of them inside out, according to how she feels, which is basically how we live.”
Armas will be joined by Adrian Brody as playwright Arthur Miller, Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, Caspar Phillipson as John F. Kennedy, and Julianne Nicholson as Gladys Pearl Baker.
Expect this to not pull its punches, with Dominik saying that he expected Blonde to receive an NC-17 rating and that it’ll “offend everyone. Blonde will hit the streaming service in late September, though appears to be already complete, as Jamie Lee Curtis saw it and said she “dropped to the floor” at Armas’ performance “She was Marilyn”. Is that awards season success I can smell?
Blonde will hit Netflix on September 23, 2022.