She sat still for three hours a day while her hair and makeup were done so she could look like Marilyn Monroe.
Blonde, which will be a Netflix original movie, will star the actor Ana De Armas. Andrew Dominik wrote and directed the film, which was the first of its kind. The movie is based on the best-selling novel Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates.
On June 16, Netflix showed a scary clip from the movie's official trailer. The brunette played Marilyn Monroe in a way that can't be denied. De Armas told Netflix Queue that every scene was based on a real photograph. As with many famous Hollywood portraits of Monroe, the trailer shows De Armas on black-and-white film looking like a "pillow-case white" blonde, which is what Monroe would have said.
In the trailer, Monroe looks in a mirror and sees her famous red lip, faint black beauty mark, and lots of platinum-blonde curls. "She's coming," echoes a voice from far away. As she cries out in pain, the beloved icon's pain is clear to see.
De Armas told Netflix Queue that each of the 47 days of filming began bright and early with up to three hours of hair and makeup. Netflix says that Dominik's version of Monroe will include some of her most famous roles from throughout her career. For example, in the trailer, De Armas reenacts Marilyn Monroe's famous "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" performance in Howard Hawks's musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with her shoulder-length Hollywood waves parted to one side of her face.
The trailer gives us a look at both the public and private sides of Monroe's life. The film, which will be shown for the first time on Netflix on September 23, shows how De Armas brought Monroe's secret life to life.
Check out the full Blonde trailer below: