Brad Pitt hails 'amazing' Ana de Armas in 'Blonde' amid backlash over Cuban accent in trailer
Brad Pitt through his Plan B Entertainment company is a producer on 'Blonde', a fictionalized take on Marilyn Monroe's life. The actor had only good things to say about lead actress Ana de Armas to Entertainment Tonight at the Los Angeles premiere of his action movie 'Bullet Train' on Monday. The project, which is based on Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 novel of the same name, took ten years to develop before they decided on de Armas, 34, to play the lead. There have been detractors of de Armas, a Cuban, playing the iconic star, but Pitt is not one of them.
"It took ten years to complete. We couldn't get it over the finish line until we found Ana. She is amazing in it. Those are challenging shoes to fill," Pitt said.
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'Was Marilyn Monroe cuban?' Fans slam Ana de Armas's accent in Netflix's 'Blonde'
Many fans of Monroe weren't too happy when the trailer for 'Blonde' dropped on July 28, complaining that de Armas' Monroe was speaking with a Cuban accent instead of her iconic breathy tone. However, the official Marilyn Monroe Estate defended the actress' casting in the movie.
"Marilyn Monroe is a singular Hollywood and pop culture icon that transcends generations and history,” said Marc Rosen, president of entertainment at Authentic Brands Group, which owns the estate. “Any actor that steps into that role knows they have big shoes to fill. Based on the trailer alone, it looks like Ana was a great casting choice as she captures Marilyn’s glamour, humanity and vulnerability. We can’t wait to see the film in its entirety!”
The movie also features Evan Williams, Xavier Samuel, Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale, and Adrien Brody.
De Armas recently spoke with ELLE about diversity in Hollywood and how she defied conventional casting by playing Monroe as a Cuban actress.
"I do want to play Latina. But I don't want to put a basket of fruit on my head every single time. So that's my hope, that I can show that we can do anything if we're given the time to prepare, and if we're given just the chance, just the chance," she said. "You can do any film—blonde—you can do anything. The problem is that sometimes you don't even get to the room with the director to sit down and prove yourself."
The actress spent two to three hours per day on set getting her hair and makeup done for the movie, and she also did a ton of additional research before the shooting.
Director Andrew Dominik's "ambitions were very clear from the start: to present a version of Marilyn Monroe's life through her lens," she stated to Netflix Queue in June. De Armas continued, "He desired for everyone to understand what it was really like to be Norma Jeane as well as Marilyn. That, in my opinion, was the most audacious, unrepentant, and feminist telling of her story that I had ever seen."
"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 added. "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 will be released on Netflix on September 28.