At a pre-Academy Awards industry screening at Harmony Gold in Hollywood, Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams was asked by an audience member during the Q & A that followed if she was "channeling" Marilyn Monroe. Her response? "I admit to some freaky feelings about what may have been moving around me. I had the same dressing room (Marilyn) did when she was filming, 'The Prince and the Showgirl,'" the circumstance around which the new film, "My Week with Marilyn" revolves.
Williams, sporting a cropped platinum pixie cut very unlike her soft, curly Marilyn-esque hairstyle on screen, said that she related to her, "...all the time, I hope." She admitted, "Similar to Marilyn, I just wanted to be taken seriously as an actress...and I have been in a way that she never was."
Another audience member stood up and gushed, "What a magnificent performance. You brought a new understanding of her." In fact, Williams' performance is so enveloping, so tangible, that it feels as if the late sex symbol is somehow present, and it leaves you feeling as if you better understand Monroe's crushing insecurity, desire for acceptance as a "real" actress, and the playful, flirtatious nature that refuses to be contained despite the efforts of her suffocating handlers, or her being trapped in an ill-suited marriage to playright Arthur Miller.
