WEIRDLAND: Jessica Chastain will play 'Blonde' Marilyn Monroe, Carl Rollyson's 'Monroe: A Life of the Actress'

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Jessica Chastain will play 'Blonde' Marilyn Monroe, Carl Rollyson's 'Monroe: A Life of the Actress'

Two-time Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain is nearing a deal to play Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik's passion project “Blonde,” multiple individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.

First announced in 2010, “Blonde” is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 700-page novel of the same name, which reimagines the inner, poetic and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker — the child, the woman and the fated-celebrity better known by her studio name of Marilyn Monroe.

Oates drew on biographical and historical sources to paint an intimate portrait of Marilyn that reveals a fragile, gifted young woman who repeatedly remade her identity to overcome the odds and define stardom in the 1950s. In 2001, Oates’ imagined memoir was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and the prolific author believes it may be the book for which she will be best remembered. Dominik adapted “Blonde” on spec and his agency, CAA, will represent the film's domestic distribution rights.

While Michelle Williams recently played Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn,” Chastain's portrayal is expected to be much different, as “Blonde” will take an unconventional approach to examining the Hollywood starlet's life and career. “It's a really sprawling, emotional nightmare fairy-tale type movie… about an abandoned orphan who gets lost in the woods,” Dominik told The Playlist at Cannes in 2012. Source: www.thewrap.com

Kyle Chandler said it was "difficult" to work with rising star Jessica Chastain in "Zero Dark Thirty," but not for any the reasons that immediately spring to mind when someone uses that word.

Jessica Chastain and Kyle Chandler attending the "Zero Dark Thirty" photocall on December 4, 2012 in New York City.

"She is very difficult to work with and I'll tell you why. The scene, especially when you get up close to her, it's very hard to do because her eyes are so intensely blue you fall into them. Literally," he said of Jessica's peepers. "When you watch the scene where we go at each other... [I can watch myself and know], that's when I was like, 'OK, how deep do your eyes -- how far do they go? My God! I see the back of your skull. It's incredible.' "She's very beautiful," Kyle added of the actress. "I had a lot of fun working with her." Source: movies.yahoo.com

"I'm very sensitive in real life. I will start to cry if someone is crying, even if it's not appropriate. I have that thing in me, a weakness or sensitivity." -Jessica Chastain

"Acting, for me, is about exploring things I don't understand in myself. I did not feel like a beautiful woman that people would kill each other for. I'm very shy, I feel very awkward, I don't feel like a femme fatale at all." -Jessica Chastain

In American popular culture, Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) has evolved in stature from movie superstar to American icon. Monroe's own understanding of her place in the American imagination and her effort to perfect her talent as an actress are explored with great sensitivity in Carl Rollyson's engaging narrative. He shows how movies became crucial events in the shaping of Monroe's identity. He regards her enduring gifts as a creative artist, discussing how her smaller roles in "The Asphalt Jungle" and "All About Eve" established the context for her career, while in-depth chapters on her more important roles in "Bus Stop, Some Like It Hot," and "The Misfits" provide the centerpiece of his examination of her life and career.

Through extensive interviews with many of Monroe's colleagues, close friends, and other biographers, and a careful rethinking of the literature written about her, Rollyson is able to describe her use of Method acting and her studies with Michael Chekhov and Lee Strasberg, head of the Actors' Studio in New York. The author also analyzes several of Monroe's own drawings, diary notes, and letters that have recently become available. With over thirty black and white photographs (some published for the first time), a new foreword, and a new afterword, this volume brings Rollyson's 1986 book up to date. From this comprehensive, yet critically measured wealth of material, Rollyson offers a distinctive and insightful portrait of Marilyn Monroe, highlighted by new perspectives that depict the central importance of acting to the authentic aspects of her being.


Carl Rollyson on Marilyn Monroe from University Press of Mississippi

"Rollyson takes her and her talent seriously and what he has to say is enlightening and often surprising... no matter how many more books are written about her... none will provide the insights this does into the person, the persona and the work of Marilyn Monroe." -Variety

" A scholar's analysis of Monroe as an actress, written engagingly enough to tempt Monroe fans... His analyses of her movie roles and how she filled them are crucial to understanding Monroe, the woman and the actress. Rollyson's achievement is his dedication to examining Monroe from every conceivable angle."--The Baltimore Sun Source: www.carlrollyson.com

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