Simon Curtis and his Week With Marilyn
Simon Curtis, director of “My Week With Marilyn” stopped by the SiriusXM studios recently to talk with Ron Bennington about the film. “My Week with Marilyn” is his feature film directing debut, and it has already been nominated for a number of awards. What follows are some excerpts from that interview.
Ron Bennington: Simon Curtis, congratulations on your SAG award nominations and a ton of Golden Globe award nominations. This is the kind of film that you really do need to get that kind of recognition because it’s not the big CGI movie. It’s a true film.
Simon Curtis: Yeah, and it’s also a film about human beings, and the kind of film that interests me as an audience member. And I hope that my interest in Marilyn Monroe and the subject will be shared by audiences.
Ron Bennington: When you first hear Michelle Williams has been cast as Marilyn Monroe, it’s such a tough thing because all of us have this certain feeling about Marilyn. But really she becomes her own kind of Marilyn Monroe fairly quickly in the film.
Simon Curtis: Yeah, it’s a funny thing, isn’t it. For example, the Queen of England and Helen Mirren wouldn’t be mistaken for each other if they were in the same room and yet because Helen Mirren is a great actress, you went on that journey and believed it. And I think the same is true here. I think Michelle is the greatest actress of her generation and we were casting Marilyn very specifically, age 30 in 1956. I was thrilled when Michelle wanted to meet, having read the script, and even more thrilled when she signed on. And I felt in safe hands from that moment onwards.
Ron Bennington: Here’s what I loved about her. Yes, she’s Marilyn Monroe but she’s also that girl that all of us have met before, the angel with the broken wings. That “I’ll be the one who saves her” girl. I think that she has that 100% down. I think each guy has his own memory of something kind of close to this in their life.
Simon Curtis: We all want to rescue women, don’t we? It’s a rescue fantasy film. It is the story of Marilyn told very specifically from the point of view of Colin Clark who was the 23-year-old assistant director on the film that Marilyn came to London to make. And we’ve based the film on his memoirs, his diaries. And even though he was only 23 and she was 30, he had dreams of rescuing her. And what we came to realize very early on in working on the film, is that there were at least three Marilyn’s in this movie. There was the character she was playing in The Prince and the Showgirl, Elsie; and there’s the public Marilyn– that we’re well used to seeing footage of, her arriving at the airport, press conferences or singing and dancing; and then most crucially of all there’s the sort of private Marilyn; the Marilyn behind the curtain. And we see Colin’s version of that Marilyn. The fabulous thing about Michelle is that she was equally skillful at finding the psychology of this damaged woman, but boy can she sing and dance as well.
Ron Bennington: We know what would make Colin want Marilyn, what do you think made Monroe want Colin?
Simon Curtis: I think it was very early in her marriage with Arthur Miller and it wasn’t altogether an easy start to that marriage. And I think Marilyn just wanted a soul mate. Someone to hang out with. One of the things that works, I hope, in our film is that it’s on two levels– their relationship. It’s quite sexy, erotically charged, fantasy date, skinny dipping in the Thames with Marilyn, but it’s also the sense of two kids recreating a childhood that one of them, at least, never had. And then Michelle had a fantastic insight. At this time in her career Marilyn was really obsessed with The Method– Lee Strasberg’s way of working. And because the character Marilyn played in The Prince and the Showgirl has an interest in a younger Prince in the embassy, maybe Marilyn herself was exploring what it was like to get to know a younger boy. It’s true, famously, Marilyn’s main relationships, marriages and affairs were with high status alpha male, dominant influential older men. And there isn’t a lot of evidence of her being interested in younger guys. So maybe Michelle was on to something there.
Ron Bennington: At the time, particularly the time you’re shooting this movie, she’s the biggest celebrity in the world. It was almost a precursor of what was coming next with Elvis and the Beatles.
Simon Curtis: I completely agree. I think she was the prototype movie star in a way. Not only was she a very famous actress but her life story became a talking point too. Her marriages, her affairs, and sadly of course, her death and the circumstances of her death. I think that now we’re well used to the Brad and Angelina thing, where people are fascinated with their family and their life. Somehow Marilyn sort of started that.
Ron Bennington: She did and it hasn’t stopped. We could leave here and go buy posters of her all over town.
Simon Curtis: It’s incredible. I think that’s a good point. I think for many people, especially younger people, and by young I mean anybody under fifty-five, she is a famous name and even a more famous face than she is an actress. There’s the Warhol Marilyn, the Madonna Marilyn, the Lady Gaga Marilyn. She’s a brand, isn’t she? And every kid knows the name and every kid knows the face and they don’t necessarily know the performances.
Ron Bennington: There is a single line in the film, I won’t give it a way but…you can see that Olivier doesn’t see her as a peer– he sees her as dressing, which was her nightmare…
Simon Curtis: Well she’d come to London to work with Olivier because she thought it would give her credibility and status. And I think it was heart wrenching for her that it didn’t work out that way.
Ron Bennington: The sets are fantastic. You’re shooting in the Palace, the Pinewood studios. That era of England is probably unknown to most of America.
Simon Curtis: That’s very interesting. You know, 1956, the year the film was set was the end of an era. England still was living very much under the shadow of the second World War. Food rationing had only just ended. Olivier in some ways at age 50 is emblematic of fading Britain, and Marilyn at 30 is emblematic of exciting, complex, brash new America. And that sense of when she arrives at London airport, and it caused a complete sensation. This was the year of 1956 of rock and roll arriving. The angry young men look back in anger, the Royal Court Theater, commercial television, everything was about to change. But Colin, our hero still dresses like his dad in tweeds and a tie, whereas a few years later a young man wouldn’t have been seen dead dressing like that.
Ron Bennington: He didn’t have any youthful rebellion. This was the rebellious move for him, and he was completely responsible with it. He certainly didn’t go on the road with the circus but in a way he did. I heard that you compared this a little bit to Almost Famous.
Simon Curtis: Yeah, I loved that film, I love Cameron Crowe’s work. That sense of, this is a young man obsessed by rock and roll and Rolling Stone magazine who got the golden ticket to hang out with the band, and there is obviously a parallel here. This young guy who is film obsessed who gets the golden ticket to hang out with Olivier and Marilyn Monroe.
Ron Bennington: Harvey Weinstein was in here not too long ago and said that he loved this film; that this was one of the few films that he was on set for, in his career, overall. What was that like for you to have Harvey there?
Simon Curtis: It was interesting. His passion for this film and this subject and for the actors was a real education for me. It’s my first film and I can only say that I am very grateful for Harvey’s support of it and I don’t think I would be here today were it not for that support.
Ron Bennington: What is next for you?
Simon Curtis: As I said, it was my first film, and I hope very much there will be a second film. And I hope the studios will still make the kind of films that I would love to see, let alone work on, about complicated human beings and scripts that teach us something about the world we live in.
Ron Bennington: Well congratulations, it’s a really fine film, and one of those films that you just decide to take the journey.
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