Blonde producer Brad Pitt is the latest to defend Ana de Armas' performance as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde from the casting backlash. After starring in two Andrew Dominik-helmed films, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Killing Them Softly, Pitt now serves as a producer on the director's new movie, Blonde, through his Plan B production banner. Based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde acts as a fictionalized account of Marilyn Monroe's life.
Continuing her steady rise to stardom via Knives Out, No Time to Die, and The Gray Man, Ana de Armas leads the Blonde cast as Norma Jeane alongside Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller, Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, and Caspar Phillipson as John F. Kennedy. Netflix released a full-length Blonde trailer late last month which sparked outrage for the simple fact that de Armas, a Cuban-Spanish actress, was playing an American icon. Some were also struck by how her accent in the trailer doesn't quite match Monroe's distinct voice.
Now, at the premiere of his new film Bullet Train, Brad Pitt took some time to defend de Armas' performance as Monroe. Talking to ET, the Blonde producer credited the Cuban actress with helping the project "across the finish line" and praised her performance as "phenomenal," saying Monroe is a "tough dress to fill." Read Pitt's full comments below:
She is phenomenal in it. 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.
Pitt's praise comes soon after Marilyn Monroe's estate defended de Armas' casting amid outrage over her accent. The actress' estate did not officially authorize Blonde, which is biographical fiction, though they also acknowledged that Monroe's shoes are tough to fill and de Armas did a commendable job capturing her "glamour, humanity and vulnerability." While Pitt and the Monroe estate's defense of de Armas' performance is certainly complimentary, it does not specifically address the backlash regarding her voice, which many claim does not resemble Monroe's signature breathy tones. Some have also criticized de Armas for maintaining her Cuban accent in the role, which is not how Monroe, born and raised in Los Angeles, sounded.
While the controversy with Blonde is strong, others have provided cogent defenses of de Armas' Marilyn Monroe accent, arguing that the backlash is absurd. In short, Dominik's film acts as a fictionalized Marilyn Monroe biopic that was never intended to be completely true to life. Thus, de Armas' accent will be just one of many inaccuracies depicted in Blonde. Perhaps they should be viewed as features of the film, rather than as defects.
Source: ET
