Ana de Armas has spoken out in defence of the 2022 movie Blonde, in which she played movie star Marilyn Monroe.
When the film’s trailer was first released, many accused it of exploitation, and its director Andrew Dominik said: “If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the f***ing audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office.”
After seeing the movie, The Independent’s Amanda Whiting argued: “Dominik’s fictionalised biopic of the tragic movie star doesn’t just fail Marilyn Monroe herself, but its use of a talking foetus begging not to be aborted – yes, really – sinks the film into new depths of invasiveness.”
Many, however, adored the film, which received a 14-minute standing ovation at its world premiere in Venice.
Now, lead star de Armas has defended the movie and opened up about what it felt like to read the criticisms of it.
“It’s hard to hear these reactions,” she told The Hollywood Reporter, “but you can always go back to what you experienced, and why you did it, and the reasons why you were attracted to the project. That is not going to change.
“You have the director, and you have other actors that you can always talk to. As hard as it is to hear when people don’t like your film, it is what it is. It was not a movie that was made to please people or to make people like it. It is a hard movie to watch.”
She continued: “I don’t think the movie speaks badly about her a bit. I think it’s the opposite. I think it speaks badly about the environment and the industry, and that’s a hard pill to swallow sometimes for other people in the business.
“I feel like the movie also makes the audience feel like participants. We contributed at the time, and we still contribute, in the exploitation of actors, people in the public eye. We, the audience, do this. And I feel like it’s possible that some people have felt like [someone] pointed a finger at [them].”
She also said that when she first read the script she thought Blonde felt like a “horror movie”.
De Armas can next be seen in Apple’s romantic action movie Ghosted alongside Chris Evans.
