Michelle Williams Interview For ‘My Week With Marilyn’

‘My Week With Marilyn’ chronicles a week in the life of Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) in which she escapes the shackles of her Hollywood career and embraces British life with Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne). In the early summer of 1956, 23 year-old Colin Clark, just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’, the film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe, who was also on honeymoon with her new husband, the playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott).

Nearly 40 years on, his diary account ‘The Prince, the Showgirl and Me’ was published, but one week was missing and this was published some years later as ‘My Week with Marilyn’ – this is the story of that week.  When Arthur Miller leaves England, the coast is clear for Colin to introduce Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life; an idyllic week in which he escorted a Monroe desperate to get away from her retinue of Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work. The biographical drama is directed by Simon Curtis and also stars the likes of Judi Dench, Julia Ormond, Derek Jacobi, Dominic Cooper and Emma Watson. Look out for ‘My Week with Marilyn’ in cinemas November 4th in the US, and November 25th in the UK. Look out for a more in-depth interview closer to the films release date.

Congratulations on your performance, I felt like you really captured her essence, there’s so many layers. It’s not the usual Marilyn Monroe impressions we’ve seen on screen in the past. How did you approach the role, and who did you discover Marilyn to be in the process?

Michelle Williams: Thank you. Like you said, because the previous representations of her were more of that ilk, it felt like there was room, that was kind of the first thing that made me think, ‘Well, maybe I can explore this.’ It was a decision made in the safety of my own home, I didn’t really consider the larger implications of it. And it was a very, very slow process, it all started at home. It all started with watching movies, listening to interviews, poring over books. It was just something that I put on in my living room, to try to mimic a walk, or figure out how exactly it is she’s holding her mouth.

The first sort of big discovery that I stumbled on was for Marilyn Monroe herself, ‘Marilyn Monroe’ was a character that she played. And the image that you’re most familiar with, there’s a person underneath there. That was the first big discovery, that it was carefully honed, but it was artifice. It was honed to where you couldn’t tell that it was artifice. It felt so real, but it was something that she’d studied and perfected and crafted. So once I discovered that that was a layer, I was finding out what that layer was and then getting underneath it. It was a long and ungainly process.

Portraying and researching an iconic figure like Marilyn Monroe, did you feel any extra pressure?

Michelle Williams: I just really thought about it as taking on another role. It’s really with the release of the movie and attention on it that you start to think, ’Oh boy, there’s a lot of expectation,’ (laughs). I really just watched everything, read everything, listened to everything, I had pictures on my wall – I was surrounded by her. There’s so much little corners that you keep finding the more research you do, the more light that is shown in these places. She was a complicated lady.

What did you do to prepare or train for the singing? It’s hard to do as it is, then to do someone else’s voice…

Michelle Williams: Yeah. Marilyn Monroe was a creation, and that creation took a lot of personal work, she also had a lot of teacher, trainers – they were more common then. Professionals who’d make these stars and help develop these talents. So I, as she was, was very lucky to be on this movie surrounded and supported by some great people. We worked on it everyday for a couple of weeks, because I’m not a singer, I have not sang since I was 10 years old (laughs). My trainer taught me about breathing, about how to deliver emotion on lines instead of just saying the words. So I had my coach and then I listened to Marilyn. She still comes up on my iPod all the time (laughs). And she was very influenced by Ella Fitzgerald as well so I listened to her a lot too.

Why do you feel people are still so fascinated by her?

Michelle Williams: There’s a million reasons, but I feel like the persona that she built up, ’Marilyn Monroe,’ and the light touch that she had – that wasn’t her, there was a person inside of her, there was a deep interior. Those comic performances in which she’s so luminous and so remarkable, that wasn’t her, that wasn’t an effortless performance, so much went into it. I think some people are just happy to say, ’That was her, that’s who she is,’ because it’s a great way to remember her, but she went much deeper than that. I think that’s what is really interesting.