The first teaser for the Netflix film Blonde, about Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe, was shared Thursday morning.
Cuban actress Ana de Armas sobs as a blonde bombshell who says she doesn’t want to be left before her male makeup artist tells her her boyfriend will come to help her.
Ana can also be seen in the pink dress she wore for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes when she sang Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend and also in the white dress over a street slit for her film The Seven Year Itch.
There she is: The first teaser for the Netflix film Blonde about Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe was shared on Thursday morning. Cuban actress Ana de Armas stars in the title role
When the star is told her friend is almost there, Marilyn goes from crying to smiling and then laughing, indicating her erratic changing moods.
During the clip, “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” is sung in a slow, moody voice.
The film is based on a 2000 book by Joyce Carol Oates.
Blonde is slated for release on Netflix in September and will be the streaming service’s first original film to receive an NC-17 rating.
The NC-17 rated biopic has “something about it that offends everyone,” the film’s Australian director Andrew Dominik said in May.
So close: Ana looks similar to the actress; Here she is seen during a fitting
Hollywood icon: Monroe is shown at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills in March 1962
The 54-year-old native of New Zealand said in an interview with Vulture in May that he was surprised the upcoming Netflix film had received an NC-17 rating, which restricts anyone under the age of 18 from watching in cinemas under any circumstances.
“On the one hand, I think if I had a choice, I’d rather go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story.
“Because we know her life was on the brink, of course how it ended. Do you want to see the warts-and-all version or do you want to see the sanitized version?” said Dominik.
Dealing with fame isn’t easy: Here, Ana is seen as Marilyn, who is being hounded by fans and the press
Glory: And she smiles as she shoots an ad campaign for The Seven Year Itch
“Blonde” was a long-term project for Dominik, the first shooting was supposed to start in January 2011.
Dominik said it’s an “interesting time” for the release of Blonde.
“If it had come out a few years ago, it would have come out right around the time Me Too came out and it would have been a printout of all that stuff. I think we’re in a time now where people are really unsure of where any lines are,” he said.
“It’s a film that definitely has a moral. But it’s swimming in very ambiguous waters because I don’t think it’s going to be as trite as people want to see it. There’s something that offends everyone,” added Dominik.
Longtime Project: Blonde, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel of the same name about Marilyn Monroe (featured in a 1953 promo for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), was a longtime project for Dominik, with filming scheduled to begin as early as January 2011
Jessica Chastain, 45, was in talks to play Monroe in 2014. Armas, 34, was cast in the lead role in late 2019.
Dominik gushed over the actress when responding to a question about his casting of Australian actor and comedian Eric Bana, 53, to portray notorious Australian criminal Mark ‘Chopper’ Read in his 2000 biopic Chopper.
“He could do Mark. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Mark ‘Chopper’ Read, the real guy? It’s amazing how close Eric is to this guy. His own father thought it was actually Mark in some parts of Chopper. Usually the problem with most films is that they are miscast. Not most movies, but it can happen,” Dominik said.
‘It’s the same problem with Blonde. You need to cast someone you buy as Marilyn Monroe. She’s incredible, this girl. You have no idea, dude. You have no idea how good Ana is. She’s as good as James Gandolfini,’ he declared.
Lead: De Armas, shown in January 2020 at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, was cast in the lead role of Blonde in late 2019