Ana de Armas is baffled that her hotly anticipated film “Blonde” has a rare NC-17 rating, even though other films “are way more explicit” than Netflix’s forthcoming movie about Marilyn Monroe and her legacy.
“I didn’t understand why that happened. I can tell you a number of shows or movies that are way more explicit with a lot more sexual content than ‘Blonde,’” the star told L’Officiel in a new interview.
De Armas said she was still happy that director Andrew Dominik wasn’t willing to shy away from the more difficult parts of Monroe’s history in the film, based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates and hitting Netflix this month.
“To tell this story, it is important to show all these moments in Marilyn’s life that made her end up the way that she did,” said Armas, 34. “It needed to be explained. Everyone [in the cast] knew we had to go to uncomfortable places. I wasn’t the only one.”
Dominik, 54, earlier this year criticized “strange” Americans for how they react “to sexual behavior.”
“I think if you’ve got a bunch of men and women in a boardroom talking about sexual behavior, maybe the men are going to be worried about what the women think,” he told Vulture.
“It’s just a weird time. It’s not like depictions of happy sexuality. It’s depictions of situations that are ambiguous,” said the filmmaker, who’s also known for “Killing Them Softly.”
“I think if I’m given the choice, I’d rather go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story,” he continued. “Because we know that her life was on the edge, clearly, from the way it ended. Do you want to see the warts-and-all version, or do you want to see the sanitized version?”
Celebrated actress and sex symbol Monroe died in 1962 of an accidental overdose when she was just 36 years old, a tragedy that has captivated the public ever since.
The film is reportedly Netflix’s first one to get a NC-17 rating.
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