On paper, the Olivier-Monroe match looked like a dream pairing, Britain?s most respected Shakespearean actor teaming up with Hollywood?s most glamorous movie star in a move that would boost both their careers. In reality, however, Monroe felt that her director refused to accord her the respect that she deserved, while Olivier became exasperated by his leading lady?s tardiness, inability to memorise her lines, and devotion to Method acting.
?She went to Pinewood with really high hopes,? says Williams. Monroe arrived in England on the crest of a wave, having recently married her third husband, the great intellectual Arthur Miller. ?But it turned out to be a very unhappy time for her, and, when things started going wrong with Miller, she really felt as though she needed a friend.?
She found one in Colin Clark ? son of the art historian Sir Kenneth Clark and brother of former Conservative MP Alan Clark ? who had wangled his first job in film, as third assistant director and general gopher. In My Week with Marilyn, Eddie Redmayne takes on the Clark role (Kenneth Branagh is Olivier), and audiences bear witness to a tender relationship that forms between Clark and Monroe.
?This is a story from Colin?s perspective, and he is an unreliable narrator,? says Williams. ?There must be some embellishment in his books, telling things from his point of view, and therefore he does have a profound effect on her in the story. But, realistically, she met a lot of people and had a lot of love and close entanglements, so whether Colin really made a lasting impression on her, it is impossible for me to say.?
However close Clark and Monroe became in real life, his books and Williams?s film do paint a very intimate and delicate portrait of the star. My Week with Marilyn is a light sketch, rather than an epic canvas, and the actress delivers a nuanced performance that is winning critical plaudits.
?To be honest, the part kind of landed in my lap,? says Williams, ?although I knew immediately that I was going to challenge myself to do it. I spent the next six months talking myself out of it ? it was daunting ? but, in the end, there was a kind of inevitability. It was the kind of part I was born to challenge myself with.?
Simon Curtis, the Cranford director who is making his feature film debut with My Week with Marilyn, says that Williams is ?perfect in so many ways. She is one of those actresses that I always want. From Dawson?s Creek onwards, I think she is absolutely marvellous.?
After making her name on that celebrated teen TV serial, Williams graduated to independent features, taking in the likes of The Station Agent and Wim Wenders?s Land of Plenty, before turning in an Oscar-nominated performance in 2005?s Brokeback Mountain.
She followed that with the critically lauded Wendy and Lucy, and the ensemble pieces I?m Not There and Synecdoche, New York. Last year she featured in both Martin Scorsese?s Shutter Island and Derek Cianfrance?s Blue Valentine, the latter earning her a second Academy Awards nomination.
She is the mother of six-year-old Matilda, whose father, Williams?s Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger, died from an accidental overdose in January 2008. In the aftermath of Ledger?s death, Williams found herself harassed by the paparazzi, even though she and Ledger had split up the previous year, and has subsequently shied away from most media contact.
?The important thing with Michelle is trust,? says Curtis. ?With our film, she wanted to know that she could go on this journey with people she could trust. Also the fact that this wasn?t the whole of Marilyn?s life, rather it was just one month in her life, made it focused, and Michelle responded to that. No one could have worked harder than Michelle and she was brave to take on such an iconic role.?
Williams smiles. ?Marilyn is an icon, and I must say that I have never been so affected by somebody?s beauty until I started spending a lot of time with her.
?I think she was an incredibly clever woman but also kind of guileless, a bit like a child. She always had such control over her own image and what the world knows of Marilyn ? the images that we see, the interviews that she gave ? was all very controlled.
?There?s this incandescence, this mixture, this woman-child. She gave the impression of having the body of a woman but the mind and the heart of an innocent, and that was an intoxicating combination. ?
'My Week with Marilyn? opens on Nov 25.
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