Ana de Armas Spent 3 Hours A Day Working On Her Marilyn Monroe Accent With A Vocal Coach While She Was Filming "Knives Out"

The cast and crew filmed Blonde over the course of nine weeks in 2019, but the release of the film was delayed due to the coronavirus lockdowns. Ana de Armas, 34, never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would portray Marilyn Monroe, but she's incredibly grateful for the opportunity. In an interview with the LA Times, she opened up about the experience.

“On paper I was not supposed to be playing Marilyn Monroe. I’m a Cuban actress. In what world could I have imagined that this was going to happen? Never,” she said. “The fact that I got this opportunity was just something out of the ordinary.”

It wasn't easy to achieve the Marilyn persona, though. She worked hard to embody Marilyn's movements and especially her accent.

Ana de Armas Spent 3 Hours a Day Working on Her Marilyn Monroe Accent With a Vocal Coach While She Was Filming "Knives Out"

The film is almost three hours long and it covers a variety of moments in Marilyn's life, including her mother's mental illness, sexual assault and abuse, and relationships with men who took advantage of her. Ana felt compelled to tell a strong story about Marilyn and help people see who she really was—and what she really faced as one of America's most famous figures in history.

Ana became more of a household name when she starred in Knives Out, and while she was working 12-hour days on set for that film, she was still making time to work on her Marilyn character. She spent three hours a day on Zoom with her vocal coach to nail down Marilyn's speech pattern and accent.

“It was about observing her facial expressions, her mouth, the roundedness of her lips, how she showed her lower teeth, and why the ‘o’s were like that,” she explained. “Someone’s voice is more than just a specific accent. It says so much more about a person.”

Director Andrew Dominik pointed out that the way Marilyn talked actually changed over the years. There was a period when she emphasized her consonants more, while she had more of a baby-like voice in the 1950s. As Ana dove deep into Marilyn's voice, she also did her best to try to get to know the iconic woman.

“To me, it was more important to understand where she was at emotionally every time, with every line, what was she thinking, what was she feeling, more than anything else,” Ana said. “That was my goal, to understand.”

There's once scene in the film where violence is portrayed against Marilyn, and Bobby Cannavale acts opposite Ana. Although there was pushback against showing this kind of content that might be considered exploitative of Marilyn, Ana and the director decided it was important to keep this scene in the movie to show what she endured.

“We made a movie about Norma Jeane. Otherwise, Norma would’ve remained invisible. We’re talking about the opposite of Marilyn Monroe. We’re talking about humanizing this person who hasn’t been seen and who was going through all of this, and she didn’t have anybody there for her to help her who didn’t have an agenda or didn’t need something from her,” Ana said. “My hope is that people feel more respect for her now that they can know her struggles and what she went through.”

Ana isn't concerned with how the movie will be received. "Whatever happens with the movie, it doesn't matter," she said. "It matters that we told a story that we believed in." She can rest easy knowing that she challenged herself to play a character she "was not supposed to play," and that she "grew as an actress and as a person."

You can watch Blonde in select theaters on September 16 and on Netflix on September 28.