‘Blonde’: Marilyn Monroe fights against the pressure of being ‘Marilyn Monroe’

Blonde, the controversial Marilyn Monroe film starring Ana de Armas as the film legend, has received its first full trailer from Netflix. Following the film’s teaser in June, the new preview focuses on a conversation between de Armas’ blonde bombshell and Bobby Cannavale’s Joe DiMaggio, in which the Yankees star asks Monroe about how she got her start in movies.

‘I suppose I was discovered.  I know you’re supposed to grow accustomed to it, but I just can’t,’ she says. ‘ I play Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe. I can’t bear the thought of doing another scene with Marilyn Monroe’.

Throughout the trailer, scenes from Monroe’s life flash on the screen, but behind the iconic moments from film history, Monroe struggled with her identity and the pressures of fame. Marilyn does not exist. When I walk out of my dressing room, I’m Norma Jeane. When the camera’s rolling, I’m still her. Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen,’ she tells DiMaggio.

Blonde, directed by Andrew Dominik and based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name, will be available on the streaming service on September 28. (and not Sept. 23, as the teaser previously advertised). The new trailer also shows how far de Armas went to become the platinum blonde icon.

‘We worked on this film for hours, every single day for almost a year,’ de Armas previously said of Blonde to Netflix Queue. ‘ I read Joyce’s novel and studied hundreds of photographs, videos, audio recordings, films, and anything else I could get my hands on. Every scene is based on an existing photograph. We’d scrutinise every detail in the photograph and argue about what was going on. The first question was always, ‘How was Norma Jeane [Baker, Monroe’s birth name] feeling here?’ We wanted to show the human side of her story. Fame made Marilyn the most visible person on the planet, but it also made Norma the most invisible.’

‘From the beginning, Andrew’s ambitions were very clear: to present a version of Marilyn Monroe’s life through her lens,’ de Armas added. ‘He wanted the entire world to know what it was like to be not only Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane. That was the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist interpretation of her story that I had ever seen’.