The Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde has just been released on Netflix, and it hasn't gotten the best reception, as the film has been criticized for being exploitative and hollow. As it is currently rated "rotten" on Rotten Tomatoes, the making of the movie seems way more interesting than the movie itself.
As the film was seemingly stuck in development hell for so long, Blonde has taken so many different shapes over the years. And between casting Jessica Chastain in the role, inspiring a James Bond movie, and the crew performing rituals at Monroe's grave, the making of the movie was outright bizarre.
The Transformation Took 2.5 Hours
It has been well-documented that actors spend most of their days on set in the make-up chair more than in front of the camera. Some actors in superhero movies have to invest upwards of eight hours in the chair. And while the number is fairly low for Ana de Armas, she still spent a surprisingly long time in make-up for the biopic.
According to the movie's makeup department head Tina Roesler Kerwin, de Armas' transformation into Marilyn Monroe took two and a half hours. The artist explained that she attempted "to find our Marilyn in Ana and not put Marilyn’s hair and makeup on Ana, but to define our Marilyn and define her as best as we could.”
Ana De Armas "Felt No Fear" During The Sex Scenes
Many viewers who watched Netflix's Blonde have argued that Ana de Armas deserves an Oscar for her portrayal of the celebrated actor. While the film has been criticized for being exploitative, critics and general audiences unanimously agree that de Armas' performance of the distressed actor is sensational. But it was no easy task, as the actor had to bare all in scenes that graphically depict sexual assault.
However, de Armas explained that she never felt exploited and the set was always a safe environment. The actor even added that it's harder for the audience to watch it than for her to perform it, noting, "It's harder for people to watch [those scenes] than for me to make them because I understood what I was doing and I felt very protected and safe. I didn't feel exploited because I was in control."
Paloma Was Affected By Blonde
de Armas has quickly become a huge movie star since audiences first saw her in her breakthrough 2019 role in Knives Out, and Blonde isn't the only 2022 movie she's starred in over the past year. The actor also played Paloma in 2021's James Bond movie No Time to Die, and the character was greatly affected by Blonde.
As Blonde was shot before the 007 flick, and de Armas had spent years getting into character as Marilyn Monroe, that bled into the portrayal of Paloma. The actor explained, "If you think about Paloma now, I am sure that there is some Marilyn in there. There is! Her energy and her charm and this thing where she was lit from the inside."
De Armas Asked For Permission To Play The Character At Monroe's Grave
In one of the weirder moments of the movie's development came before the shoot started, as the entire cast and crew of the film went to Monroe's grave to "ask for permission" to make the Netflix exclusive. de Armas mentioned, "We got this big card and everyone in the crew wrote a message to her. Then we went to the cemetery and put it on her grave. We were asking for permission in a way."
Actors have always been known to do extravagant things to get into the role of a real-life person, such as Lady Gaga's preparation for Patrizia in House of Gucci, but the ritual-sounding prep for Blonde is one of the strangest. While it's a nice gesture, it's also a little absurd, especially given how the movie has been criticized for being so exploitative.
It Was 10 Years In The Making
There have been so many movies about Marilyn Monroe over the decades, but Blonde has been in development the longest by far. According to Brad Pitt, who served as a producer for the movie, it had been in the making for 10 years. The writer/producer explained, "That’s a tough dress to fill. It was 10 years in the making. It wasn’t until we found Ana that we could get it across the finish line."
That means that Blonde must have entered development not long after another Marilyn Monroe movie, My Week with Marilyn, and the new film could have even been a reaction to that. While the 2011 movie was an Oscar darling, it didn't go into detail about how rough the star's life really was, which is Blonde's sole purpose.
It Was Influenced By Raging Bull
Raging Bull is one of the best sports movies ever made, and on paper, it's an entirely different movie from Blonde, as one is a boxing film and the other is about a world-famous actress. However, both main characters have extremely similar lives, especially in the way they cope with trauma.
Director Andrew Dominik explained that Blonde was influenced by Raging Bull, positing, "The whole idea of Blonde was to detail a childhood drama and then show the way in which that drama splits the adults into a public and private self." The director added that Citizen Kane was a huge influence too and that Blonde is "like Citizen Kane and Raging Bull had a baby daughter"
Naomi Watts Was Originally Attached To The Project
As the movie spent 10 years in development, a lot of different names had been attached to the movie at that time, one of the most interesting being Naomi Watts. Indie Wire reported as far back as 2012 that Watts was attached to the project, which Dominik then described as an "emotional nightmare fairy-tale."
It's easy to see Watts in the role, given that she already has an uncanny resemblance to the Some Like it Hot actor without being put in the make-up chair. But after the movie struggled to get studio backing, Watts moved on and went to work on other projects (via MovieWeb).
Jessica Chastain Was Attached, Too
Two years after it was revealed that Watts was playing Monroe, The Wrap reported that Jessica Chastain had signed on to replace her. This again didn't come to fruition, and it's surprising that the movie once again struggled to get studio backing, as Chastain attached to star should have gotten a lot of attention.
It was announced in 2014, which was following the actor's two Academy Award nominations two years in a row. However, Chastain didn't miss out on too much, as she starred in three movies the following year, gave tons more award-worth performances, and finally won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2022 for The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
Dominik Wanted It To Be Less Dialogue Heavy
The director's last movie was released 11 years ago, which was the criminally underrated Brad Pitt movie about a hitman, Killing Them Softly. It was a vastly different movie from his new release, as, along with being a whole hour and 15 minutes shorter, the lean 2011 movie was also extremely dialogue-heavy.
The epic finale of the hitman movie wasn't a shootout, but a political debate at a bar that ended with Pitt's character stating, "Now f****** pay me." According to Collider, Dominik stated before he started shooting the film that he wanted it to be light on dialogue, which could have been a reaction to how full of dialogue his previous film was. Interestingly, in the same report, Dominik claimed that Blonde would be one of the 10 best films ever made.
De Armas Worked With A Dialect Coach For Nine Months
According to The Times, de Armas trained with a dialect coach for nine months to get her voice to sound identical to Monroe's. The best actors working today often work with acting coaches, but rarely do they work with them for such a long stretch of time.
But while de Armas working with a dialect coach for nearly a year is extremely rare, there are two examples of actors being trained by dialect coaches for an extensive amount of time in 2022. Along with de Armas, according to IGV, Austin Butler was trained by a dialect coach for two years to perfect the voice of Elvis Presley for Elvis.