Ana de Armas: 'Perfecting Marilyn Monroe's accent for Blonde fried my brain'

Ana de Armas underwent dialect coaching for nine months to master Marilyn Monroe's accent for Blonde.

The Cuban actress stars in the upcoming biopic as the late American screen legend and told the Sunday Times' Style magazine that getting the accent spot-on left her brain "fried".

Asked if she mastered Marilyn's American accent, she said: "I tried! It only took me nine months of dialect coaching, and practising, and some ADR sessions (re-recording dialogue after filming). It was a big torture, so exhausting. My brain was fried."

Ana also revealed that she could see similarities between women acting now to those on-screen in Marilyn's heyday.

"I had a lot of thoughts as a woman in the industry, and even in general, about how things from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s are so relatable to nowadays," she mused. "And how if you don't have a strong base, with your family and so on, it's really hard to make it through - really hard."

When Ana first moved to the U.S., she couldn't speak English but still went out auditioning for film roles and would learn her scripts by their sounds alone.

"In the beginning I was not getting it at all. But, you know, it's getting better!" she smiled.

Blonde, also starring Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, and Scoot McNairy, is currently in post-production and is expected to be released later this year.