Ana de Armas, 34, underwent an unbelievable transformation to play Marilyn Monroe in the drama film Blonde. Netflix shared a “time lapse” video of the hair department team getting to work on Ana, so that she could look identical to one of the most iconic actresses to ever live. The video was released on September 30, two days after Blonde started streaming on Netflix.
Time lapse of Ana de Armas transforming into Marilyn Monroe for Blonde. pic.twitter.com/p9rnls4BDf
— Netflix (@netflix) September 30, 2022
At the start of the video, Ana is sitting in the makeup chair donning her signature brown hair. Within the 42 second clip, the hair department team hid Ana’s dark hair with a silicone cap, making her look bald. Then, they glued a blonde wig on her head that looked completely realistic. Ana sipped coffee out of a “M” cup, and also snacked on a pickle, when they took breaks during the makeover process.
The makeup team also helped transform Ana into Marilyn with light eyeshadow and dark red lipstick. By the end of the video, Ana looked exactly like the late Some Like It Hot actress. The clip concluded with Ana in character staring at herself in a mirror in black-and-white.
Hair department head Jaime Leigh McIntosh and makeup department head Tina Roesler Kerwin revealed to Variety that they spent two and a half hours each morning working on Ana on the set of Blonde. Tina explained that their goal was “to find our Marilyn in Ana and not put Marilyn’s hair and makeup on Ana, but to define our Marilyn and define her as best as we could.”
Ana has been open about how hard she worked to pull off this new Marilyn Monroe movie. “I worked on this film for hours, every single day for almost a year,” she previously said to Netflix Queue. “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. We’d pore over every detail in the photo and debate what was happening in it.”
Blonde has received mixed reviews from fans and critics. Ana’s performance is being praised, but the movie itself is being criticized for how it portrays Marilyn. The film currently has a 44% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.