Last month we learned that actress Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creek, Brokeback Mountain) had been cast as Marilyn Monroe in an upcoming biopic co-starring Emma Watson and titled My Week with Marilyn and today we get our first look at Michelle as the iconic blonde bombshell herself. Additionally, we learn new casting news about the film from Deadline which shows that this film will be full of big Hollywood stars:

Julia Ormond is playing Vivien Leigh after Catherine Zeta-Jones dropped out, and Dougray Scptt is playing Arthur Miller. Filming starts today in London on the feature, which is shooting for 7 weeks at Pinewood and on location in and around the city. Michelle Williams is cast as Marilyn Monroe alongside Kenneth Branagh (Laurence Oliver), Judi Dench (Dame Sybil Thorndike), Dominic Cooper, Emma Watson and Derek Jacobi with Eddie Redmayne playing Colin Clark, the young assistant on the set of the 1956 film The Prince and the Showgirl who helped the star escape her pressure-cooker Hollywood career for a brief week.

Wow … this is a very strong cast of players, one that has the potential to really tell a fascinating and compelling story. What is key to this film, I think, is Williams‘s ability to bring Marilyn to life. As you may recall, yesterday we learned of a new book of personal writings — due for publication next month — by Marilyn Monroe that will show us for the first time previously unseen poems, letters and diary entries. Despite the fact that that book will give us a somewhat better understand of the real Marilyn Monroe, this film is proof that the public is still very much intrigued by the mythos of Marilyn Monroe. Now that we know what Michelle Williams‘s version of Marilyn Monroe looks like do you think she can pull off the part? I can see the similarity but, IMHO, this photo looks more like Michelle Williams with a lot of make-up rather than a totally convincing Marilyn Monroe.

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