Joyce Carol Oates first had the idea for her novel Blonde after coming across a 1941 photograph of 15-year-old Norma Jeane Baker posing as a winner of a California beauty contest. “Oates identified with Norma Jeane’s innocence,” Elaine Showalter writes in her introduction to the novel’s 20th anniversary edition. It’s easy to understand why. In 1946, just a few short years after that picture was taken, that same young woman would sign a contract with 20th Century Fox and take on the stage name that would define her life and, tragically, her death: Marilyn Monroe. 

Still, Blonde isn’t a biography of the iconic Hollywood celebrity. Instead, throughout its nearly 800 pages, Oates constructs an epic narrative about public and private personas, exploring how a woman who simply wanted to be taken seriously as an actor was flattened into a desirable product by a rapacious industry. 

“My distinction is always between Norma Jeane and Marilyn Monroe,” Oates tells Tudum. “The former is the person, the latter is the performance. I was never much interested in the celebrity side of Monroe, only in the personal, inward aspect of her being.”

Andrew Dominik’s film adaptation, which premieres on Netflix September 28, follows in those fictional footsteps. Starring Ana de Armas as the bombshell of the title, Blonde specifically highlights the divide between Norma Jeane and her Hollywood alter ego. The former is a vulnerable young woman who craves love, security and respect. The latter is the creature the public pays to see. “It’s a dream film about Marilyn Monroe,” Dominik tells Netflix. “It’s about the image as much as the person.”

Oates has given the movie her blessing, although she stresses that Dominik’s Blonde stands on its own. Ahead, the author, whose latest novel Babysitter also explores the journey of a woman grappling with dreams of another kind of life, reflects on the legend we just can’t quit and what she thinks of de Armas’ performance. 

How did Andrew Dominik pitch his adaptation to you? What convinced you that he was the right person with the right vision for the project?
Joyce Carol Oates: Andrew sent his excellent adaptation of the novel to me, which I read with much admiration. He had selected from an 800-page novel the precise storyline to accommodate a feature film, focusing upon the relationship between Norma Jeane Baker [and] her performing self, Marilyn Monroe.

Matt Kennedy/Netflix

How would you describe Ana de Armas’ performance? How does it fit into (or differ from) what you originally imagined for the character?
Ana de Armas’ performance is mesmerizing. She’s the very essence of Marilyn Monroe — innocence, beauty, fragility, melancholy.

Is there an element of this story that people may not have grasped when the novel first came out that we are ready to grapple with now in the film?
Fortunately, the entire #MeToo movement burst into consciousness in the interim. It’s clear that Marilyn Monroe, like every other “starlet” of her day, was preyed upon relentlessly by [male] film producers, studio executives, agents [and] photographers. What was an open secret in the past morphed into its equivalent in the present day when a network of enablers and apologists surround predators like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein [and] countless others like them.  

What’s your favorite Marilyn Monroe performance? What makes it stand out?
Niagara is my favorite Monroe film, followed by Some Like It Hot. Monroe is brilliant in both, very different roles.

Why do you think we’re still so fascinated with the concept of Marilyn 60 years after her death? How do you think that attention is still affecting the image we have of her?
In her fragility [and] vulnerability as well as her extraordinary luminosity, Monroe personifies the eclipsed side of celebrity, in which a wounded child is likely to be waiting, hoping to be loved. The ideal performer is one who needs the adulation of the crowd.  

Is there a healthy way to be a fan of Marilyn Monroe? Can we be interested without exploiting her?
It scarcely matters in 2022 how we approach Marilyn Monroe — she’s long beyond being hurt by us or acclaimed. She’s become something abiding [and] American — iconic — detached now from even her own history, like a figure out of mythology.

What conversations do you hope the film starts among viewers?
I haven’t thought of it. But I hope the film draws respectful attention to remarkable Andrew Dominik and to Ana de Armas in her stunning performance.

To me, a film is its own art form [and] might be related only tangentially to its original material; it’s a director’s medium.

Blonde Main TrailerWatched by all. Seen by none.