In the early pre-production stages of Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde,” not everyone involved in the project backed Ana de Armas’ casting as Marilyn Monroe. Speaking at the Red Sea Film Festival, the actress recalls meeting with Australian director Andrew Dominik and some of the film’s producers, saying, “I’m not going to say who but not everyone was supportive of my casting.”
“I get it,” she went on when talking about her Oscar-nominated performance. “A Cuban playing Marilyn Monroe is very strange. A week of preparation on my own, and my accent was a disaster. Long story short, we managed to convince the producers that I was the right choice. Andrew had been casting that movie for 10 years, and he wouldn’t do it with anyone else. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done. It was a beautiful, delicious torture.”
De Armas said her Oscar nomination did not change the roles she gets offered, saying “some people feel like it was a fluke, like somehow I did it.” “There’s still this kind of feeling of having to prove myself again somehow.” She added that, even though big action films like “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” are “fun,” they are “not all I have to offer.”
Still on the Oscar campaign for “Blonde,” the actress lamented being the only one recognized for her work in the drama. “We wanted more for the movie,” she said. “I wasn’t the only good thing about the movie. Andrew deserved to be recognized, hair and make up, so many departments and people I wish had received that recognition and appreciation from their peers. I was happy, but it felt kind of lonely in those awards because it was just me representing the film and dealing with all the controversy and the hard questions and topics of the movie. But at the same time, when is that going to happen again? Maybe that’s the one and only time I will ever be in that room, so I really enjoyed that really tiny campaign.”
In a way, De Armas ended up playing Monroe not once, but twice. Due to Daniel Craig getting injured ahead of filming “No Time to Die,” the actor had to flip shoots, first filming Dominik’s biopic, then heading back to shoot the Bond instalment. “I finished ‘Blonde’ on a Friday and started shooting Bond on a Monday. In my first scene in the movie, I started talking like Marilyn. I had 48 hours to say goodbye to a huge character and start the next one. If you look at Paloma, you can see a little bit of Marilyn in it. It was not intentional, but I think it made her even more special.”
De Armas called “No Time to Die” a “life-changing” film, recalling getting a call from director Cary Joji Fukunaga before he even got a script for the high-profile film. “I got a call and he said, ‘I want you to be in the film. It’s a Cuban agent. Are you in?”
“I love Cary’s work, I love Daniel Craig, and the Bond franchise,” continued the actor. “If there’s going to be a Cuban agent in a Bond film, it’s going to be me. I don’t care what it is and for how long. I loved the idea, and representing my country was bigger than everything, so I knew I had to trust the process. Those 15 minutes on screen did a lot for me. The reach the franchise has and the love from the audience… And that character, as small as it was, was big. People loved it. When the character says goodbye and gives him a cigar, there was a standing ovation. I will never forget that moment. I got a lot of opportunities because of that role.”
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