Netflix's First Blonde Trailer Shows a Different Side of Marilyn Monroe

Netflix

After headlines about an NC-17 rating and rumors of reshoots and revisions flooded Instagram account Deux Moi, Netflix finally released its very first trailer for Blonde. The Marilyn Monroe biopic, based on a 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates, stars Ana de Armas — fresh off a blockbuster hit with the streamer, The Gray Man — as the titular blonde, though the preview shows a film far darker and more intimate than past versions of Monroe's life, including the Oscar-nominated My Week with Marilyn, which starred Michelle Williams.

"I know you're supposed to get used to it, but I just can't," de Armas says in the trailer, which includes iconic Marilyn moments, like her pink dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and her white dress blowing up as she stands on a subway grate. "I can't face doing another scene with Marilyn Monroe."

Netflix

The film focuses on the duality of Marilyn and how she's battling with herself and her identities as a blonde bombshell and Norma Jeane Mortenson. Netflix's synopsis explains that the movie "boldly reimagines the life of Marilyn Monroe, exploring the split between her public and private selves."

"When I come out of my dressing room, I'm Norma Jeane. I'm still her when the camera is rolling," she continues. "Marilyn Monroe only exists on the screen."

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Speaking with Netflix Queue, de Armas said that writer and director Andrew Dominik's "ambitions were very clear from the start: 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 Jeane," she said. "I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen." 

Netflix

As leaks from the film's production made their way online, de Armas confirmed all the work that went into becoming Marilyn and how she prepped for the role.

"We worked on this film for hours, every single day for almost a year. I read Joyce's novel, studied hundreds of photographs, videos, audio recordings, films — anything I could get my hands on. Every scene is inspired by an existing photograph," she said. "We'd pore over every detail in the photo and debate what was happening in it. The first question was always, 'What was Norma Jeane feeling here?' We wanted to tell the human side of her story."

Blonde premieres on Netflix on Septemer 23.