Ana De Armas Has Responded To Her New Film’s Rating
Ana de Armas revealed that she was confused as to why Blonde received an NC-17 rating.
This article is more than 2 years old
Every few years, an actress shows up seemingly out of nowhere and then is virtually everywhere you look. In a matter of months, she goes from unknown to the center of seemingly every new project in development. The early 2010s belonged to Jennifer Lawrence as she lept from the Hunger Games Franchise to Academy Award hopefuls like Silver Linings Playbook and The Hustle. The end of that decade shifted to Naomi Scott, who went from Power Rangers to Aladdin to Charlie’s Angels without skipping a beat—the new decade ushered in a new darling in Ana de Armas. While she gained some notoriety with her roles in Blade Runner 2049 and Knives Out, showing up in Daniel Craig’s final James Bond outing, No Time to Die, launched her to stardom. Now, the newest Ana de Armas project has received its rating, and she didn’t mince her words about her feelings about it.
According to Uproxx, Ana de Armas responded to the news that her film, Blonde, received an NC-17 rating, the first ever for a Netflix film. The actress expressed her confusion by saying she didn’t know why the rating happened and that she could name many other films or TV series that are more explicit with more sexual content than her new film. She went on to talk about the importance they put on giving a real-life depiction of the uncomfortable things that happened to Marilyn Monroe that made her end up the way she did. The Ana de Armas semi-biopic sounds like the rating were less about explicit sex and more about possible discomfort or triggering scenes.
Blonde is based on the biographical fiction novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oats. The book was released in 2000 and took a more imaginative approach in telling the mystery of Marilyn Monroe instead of conjecture and hypothesis. While biographers all seem to disagree on the facts of the actress’s life, Oats weaved fiction in with the fact to tell a more poetic tale about the three different female personas present in the Monroe story. Norma Jean, the naive girl with stars in her eyes; Marilyn Monroe, the superstar; and Blonde, the symbol. Ana de Armas appears as the bombshell in the fictionalized account of her life. The film will likely weave a healthy dose of director and actor interpretation into the story as well, bringing viewers an engaging, albeit false, story about Marilyn’s last days.
Ana de Armas isn’t the only person involved with the movie that wasn’t excited about the rating. According to Variety, director Andrew Dominik responded with a criticism of America’s confusing views about sex on screen while pointing out the country’s significant contribution to the adult film industry. While the rating also caused a little friction between Dominik and Netflix, all seems to be well as the movie is on track to show at the Venice Film Festival, and Dominik had nothing but good things to say about the streaming service. As viewers, we will have to wait until it premieres before we get to understand the rating ourselves, but the one thing we can be sure of is Ana de Armas will shine in every scene, just like Marilyn did before her.
