Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Michelle Williams Stuns with Resemblance to Marilyn Monroe

A photo of Michelle Williams on the cover of Vogue's October issue

Michelle Williams, dolled up as iconic, tragic bombshell Marilyn Monroe, graces the pages of the October issue of Vogue, out next Tuesday. (Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz is behind the lens.)

This isn’t the first time Williams has posed as Marilyn: she appeared in a haunting promo shot for her upcoming role in the movie My Week with Marilyn.

In the Vogue interview, pin-thin Williams admits she tried to gain weight for the part. “Unfortunately, it went right to my face,” she explains. “So at some point it became a question of, ‘Do I want my face to look like Marilyn Monroe’s, or my hips?'” The director settled, finally, on using foam padding to create Marilyn’s curves.

Williams threw herself into studying Monroe’s life, mannerisms, and movements for the part.

“I do remember one moment of being all suited up as Monroe,” Williams explains, “and walking from my dressing room onto the soundstage practicing my ‘wiggle’.

“There were three or four men gathered around a truck, and I remember seeing that they were watching me—and for the very first time, I glimpsed some idea of the pleasure I could take in that kind of attention. Not their pleasure, but my pleasure. And I thought, ‘Oh, maybe Marilyn felt that way when she walked down the beach.'”

On losing Heath Ledger:

Three years ago, it felt like we didn’t have anything, and now my life—our life—has kind of repaired itself.

Look, it’s not a perfectly operating system—there are holes and dips and electrical storms—but the basics are intact.

It’s changed how I see the world and how I interact on a daily basis. It’s changed the parent I am. It’s changed the friend I am. It’s changed the kind of work that I really want to do. It’s become the lens through which I see life—that it’s all impermanent.

Image gallery via Buzzfeed and Vogue

9 CommentsLeave a comment

  • Michele Williams is so pretty, but doesn’t look a thing like Marilyn. I’m sure her great acting will more than make up for it, but come on.

    Honestly, ever since Heath Ledger died everyone acts like she’s this brave widow that we all have to support. It’s just weird. I love her work and I think she’s a great actress, I just don’t get the over-the-top adulation she gets because of his unfortunate death. Even the fact that they had broken up and were dating others seems to have been collectively erased from everyone memories.

    I think she’ll make an amazing Marilyn, I just don’t think the still pictures do anything other than to highlight the fact that there is little physical resemblance between the two.

    • I genuinely don’t think Heath Ledger was the heart of the interview, though, but we’re all still so damned in love with the man. So the interviewer asked about him, she replied, and the rest of us are totally amazed with her articulate, slightly grief-stricken answers. But I sincerely think most of the interview was about “channeling Marilyn”; in the meantime, every blog has hopped on Ledger quotes instead. What can I say? I’m part of the problem.

      ETA: I replied because your comment is valid and incisive and I want to “pick fights” with my favorite commenters. <3

  • i don’t think she looks anything like marilyn either and she looks really awkward in all of these photos, especially the cover photo.

  • Well, marilyn has:

    larger eyes, lighter hair (she had brown hair), longer chin, rounder chin, lower & thinner cheekbones, larger nose, fuller lips (without injections), smaller & higher ears, lower hairline, lower brows, and narrower shoulders.

    Not really a close resemblance.

  • Not even close. You could put that hairstyle and those clothes on most anyone and they might ‘resemble’ MM. but no one has ever come close to capturing the pure softness and vulnerability in Monroe’s eyes and mouth.