After Ana de Armas absorbed criticism, based on a trailer, for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in the Netflix movie Blonde, Bullet Train actor Brad Pitt jumped to her defense.
According to Variety, Pitt, who produced Blonde with his production company Plan B Entertainment, said that de Armas does a great job in the upcoming film. "She's phenomenal in it," he said. "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 comments came after some viewers complained that de Armas doesn't sound like Monroe in the trailer, with her Cuban accent coming through. Blonde looks at the life and loves of the iconic singer, model and actress, based on a 2000 novel of the same name by "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" author Joyce Carol Oates.
According to de Armas, Killing Them Softly director Andrew Dominik offers a fresh, never-before-seen take on Monroe in the new biopic. "Andrew's ambitions were very clear from the start," she explained, "to present a version of Marilyn Monroe's life through her lens. He wanted the world to experience what it actually felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jean. I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen."
Appearing alongside star de Armas in Blonde is The Pianist's Adrien Brody as Death of a Salesman playwright Arthur Miller, Vinyl's Bobby Cannavale as Joe DiMaggio, Mare of Easttown's Julianne Nicholson as Gladys Pearl Baker (Monroe's mother), Xavier Samuel as Charlie Chaplin Jr., Escape Room's Evan Williams as Edward G. Robinson Jr., Jackie's Caspar Phillipson as John F. Kennedy, King of the Hill's Toby Huss as Allan "Whitey" Snyder, The Future's David Warshofsky as Darryl F. Zanuck, NCIS's Michael Masini as Tony Curtis, Luke Whoriskey as James Dean and Eric Matheny as Joseph Cotten.
Dominik's fresh take on Monroe's life isn't the only unique thing about Blonde. The film will have an NC-17 rating due to sexually explicit content, which will be a first for Netflix. While the streamer is no stranger to sex scenes in its own native content, the rating could affect the film's commercial viability outside the platform. Thus, the NC-17 issue became the center of disagreements between the director and Netflix.
Blonde is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the fall and will hit Netflix on Sept. 28.
Source: Variety