Michelle Williams for ELLE UK December 2011

Michelle Williams is wearing Prada on the subscriber's cover of ELLE UK December 2011. More below.

On speaking to Marilyn’s ghost:
“While we were filming, something came out in the National Enquirer that a psychic had spoken to her and that she approved of what we were doing and she thought I was doing a really good job. So maybe she likes it!”
On Marilyn‘s voice:
“I studied tapes. There’s really nothing that exists of her, that I could find anyway, that exists of her having a conversation with a friend… So there wasn’t a template that existed for her everyday vocal pattern, so at a certain point you have to make it imaginatively.”
On taking the role of Marilyn Monroe:
“I was so apprehensive. It was daunting living up to people’s expectations as well as my own expectations.”
On parallels with Monroe’s life:
“There were so many connections and parallels for me in making this film. I was 30 when making the movie, the same age Marilyn was when she filmed The Prince and the Showgirl, the picture our film is based around. We filmed in the same studio at Pinewood where that movie was made. I had the same dressing room Marilyn had used and we also shot at the same house, Parkside, where she had stayed during filming.”
On wanting to know the real Marilyn:
“I had always been more interested in the private Marilyn, and the unguarded Marilyn. Even as a young girl, my primary concern wasn’t with this larger than life personality smiling back from the wall but with what was going on underneath.”
On what Marilyn’s experience was like in England:
“What Marilyn anticipated happening and what actually happened were two very different things and they created discord and unhappiness for her in England. She was expecting to go to London and make a movie with the most esteemed actor of the time and hoped it would bring her the respect that she deserved and craved. When she arrived she felt she was being mistreated and laughed at. Olivier sneered at her and didn’t treat her with the kind of attention she was hoping for but when you watch the film now, you can see Marilyn wipes the floor with the rest of the cast. They are all very stiff, mannered and archaic but if she were making that movie today there is nothing about her performance that has gone out of fashion or faded. She is very real, very in the moment and so beautiful.”

Courtesy of ELLE UK