Lesser known facts about the upcoming Netflix film Blonde

The highly anticipated Netflix film Blonde, based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, is set to release on the platform on the 28th of September. The film, starring Ana de Armas, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last week to a standing ovation and has been well received by critics. So for today’s Now You Know podcast we take a look at some of the lesser-known facts of Blonde.

1. Before Ana de Armas was cast as the iconic Marylin Monroe, Hollywood veterans Naomi Watts and Jessica Chastain were rumored to star as the ‘blonde bombshell’. Co-producer Brad Pitt convinced Jessica Chastain to take up the part until she had to drop out for various reasons. The role eventually went to Hollywood’s rising star Ana de Armas.
2. Film stars in the past have often added their friends and family members as extras in one of their films. Ana de Armas has taken this a step further by adding her own dog named Elvis in the role of Marilyn's dog for Blonde. The dog is possibly named after another ‘sex symbol’ of the 50s and 60s, Elvis Presley. There is also speculation online that Marilyn and Elvis may have crossed paths at one point.
3. Despite popular belief that the film Blonde is a biopic, it is in fact a fictionalised version of Monroe’s life and is based on the 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. The author has reiterated that the novel is a work of fiction. It was previously adapted into a miniseries in 2001 starring Poppy Montgomery
4. The film earned notoriety for receiving an NC-17 rating, the highest content rating given for films with explicit content. It is reported that Netflix even asked director, Andrew Dominik, to tone down the sexual content. But the film still received an NC-17 rating, the first major Hollywood feature film since Showgirls in 1995 to receive the rating. However, both Dominik and de Armas confessed that they were surprised to learn about the film's NC-17 rating. De Armas said that she can name several films and TV shows with more graphic content.
5. The character in the film Whitey played by Toby Huss is inspired by Monroe's lifelong personal makeup artist Allan Snyder. He also served as a pallbearer at her funeral.
6. There was a significant backlash when Cuban actress Ana de Armas was cast as Marilyn Monroe. There were arguments being made that if a Caucasian replaced a person of colour to play a character there would be more outrage, and several people called her casting hypocritical. However, Ana de Armas is a Cuban of European descent which makes the argument obsolete. However, she did require prosthetics and blue-coloured lenses to get the right look for her character. Her American accent also required a lot of work which was supposedly ironed out in post-production.

Well that's the OTTplay Now You Know for today, until the next episode it's your host Nikhil signing out.

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• Written by Ryan Gomez