Cuban-Spanish actor Ana de Armas (Knives Out, No Time To Die) transforms into Marilyn Monroe for the upcoming Netflix film Blonde.
Directed by Andrew Dominik, Blonde is based on the bestselling novel by Joyce Carol Oates, a reimagining of the life of the Hollywood icon.
The official trailer and stills (below) released for promotion, reveal just how striking the resemblance between de Armas and Monroe is in the production.
Now, the film’s makeup lead has shared some insight into the process of transformation de Armas underwent each day during filming to ensure she closely resembled the American star.
Adrien Brody as Arthur Miller and Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in ‘Blonde’. Image: @netflixqueue
In an interview with Allure, makeup department head Tina Roesler Kerwin says beyond working with a dialect coach and choreographer, de Armas experienced two to two and a half hours each morning of hair and makeup simultaneously.
“I tested certain foundations and ended up landing on one that would best mimic [Marilyn’s] sheen that she had on her skin — she used to put Vaseline on her skin,” revealed Kerwin.
“I ended up with the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter, which I don’t think is a great foundation for everyday life; I think it’s a great highlighter. It’s so reflective that it worked perfectly.”
Though De Armas wore blue contacts to mimic Monroe’s eye colour, Kerwin says the two have a similar eye shape with big, deep-set eyes with ample lid space. Kerwin used strategically-placed lashes to help alter de Armas’s shape to be even closer to Monroe’s.
“I used a lot of lashes to weigh the corners of [de Armas’s] eyes down because her eyes are a little bit bigger,” she told Allure. “But the lashes, if you put enough of them on, it’ll change the shape of your eye.”
Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in ‘Blonde’. Image: @ana_d_armas
The makeup lead also had De Armas’s eyebrows shaved slightly to shape them and bleached to a lighter shade.
For Monroe’s famous bleached blonde ‘do, de Armas wore a series of five wigs that were hand-tied to mimic Monroe’s specific hair pattern and texture before being styled in her famous pin-curl set.
Blonde arrives on Netflix on 23 September. Watch the trailer here.
