Michelle Williams does a pretty good Marilyn Monroe impression on the cover of this month’s Vogue. Michelle will play Monroe in the upcoming film My Week With Marilyn. In the issue, she chats about the movie, turning 30, playing the icon, and Heath Ledger.
On turning 30:
“I feel like something has changed for me, but it’s a new change, so it’s going to be hard for me to describe…I don’t feel as shy or nervous or self-conscious. I have more confidence that I can handle what life brings me… I feel giddy about it because it’s a complete transformation. It’s like I’ve found my voice.”
On playing Marilyn:
“As soon as I finished the script, I knew that I wanted to do it, and then I spent six months trying to talk myself out of it.”
On sex appeal:
“Any messages that I got as a child about what it is to have a woman’s body or to be sexual were all negative—that people wouldn’t take you seriously or that they would take advantage of you… The expectation to be beautiful always makes me feel ugly because I feel like I can’t live up to it.”
On feeling hot:
“I remember being all suited up as Marilyn 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 come and feeling that they were watching me go—and for the very first time I glimpsed some idea of the pleasure I could take in that kind of attention… I thought, Oh, maybe Marilyn felt that when she walked down the beach.
On Heath‘s death:
“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. For a really long time, I couldn’t stop touching people’s faces. I was like, ‘Look at you! You move! You’re here!’ It all just seemed so fleeting, and I wanted to hold on to it.”
