{"id":1049351,"date":"2026-09-07T18:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T18:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1049351\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T18:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T18:58:25","slug":"venice-film-festival-ellen-burstyn-plays-marilyn-monroe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1049351\/","title":{"rendered":"Venice Film Festival: Ellen Burstyn plays Marilyn Monroe"},"content":{"rendered":"

VENICE, Italy (AP) \u2014 Of all the roles Ellen Burstyn<\/a> might have been offered in her 90s, that of Marilyn Monroe seemed fairly unlikely. But then one day Maggie Gyllenhaal<\/a> came to her apartment to talk about a wild idea: What if she played Monroe at 100<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounded like a good idea to me,\u201d Burstyn told The Associated Press. <\/p>\n

Their 17-minute short film, \u201cFlesh Impact,\u201d had its world premiere Monday at the Venice Film Festival<\/a>, where Burstyn, 93, also received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.<\/p>\n

Ellen Burstyn\u2019s Marilyn Monroe moment<\/p>\n

Though Burstyn never met Monroe, who died at 36, there was overlap. They shared a massage therapist, who would tell stories about his late friend. He even told Burstyn that she was actually quite like Monroe, and lent her one of Monroe\u2019s old books called \u201cThe Thinking Body,\u201d which had some treasures like old receipts inside. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that she was not what she presented as her persona and that actually that\u2019s a persona that she created,\u201d Burstyn said. \u201cShe created the whole concept of Marilyn Monroe and played it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once, she saw her in a nightclub and Monroe nodded at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was so startlingly beautiful and she caught my eye and \u2026 I felt that she recognized me,\u201d Burstyn said. \u201cI was very early in my career. And the fact that she recognized me, I just felt so honored and pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Monroe short came about in somewhat unconventional fashion, through the luxury car company Genesis, whose chief marketing officer Amy Marentic approached Gyllenhaal about doing something around what would have been Monroe\u2019s 100th birthday in June. <\/p>\n

Gyllenhaal asked for a weekend to think about it, and landed on Marilyn, at 100, \u201cdoing basically the most vulnerable, one of the most vulnerable things I think an actor can do, which is audition, alone on a stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burstyn was the first actor she thought of.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had this feeling maybe this is an opportunity for her to think about things in a new way,\u201d Gyllenhaal said.<\/p>\n

The two found that they shared a similar language and approach to the work. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are interested in the depth of what\u2019s being revealed. And we both want to go there,\u201d Burstyn said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be doing anything, we\u2019re gonna be doing it from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gloria Steinem effect<\/p>\n

Though nothing has really changed very much in how Burstyn chooses roles over the years \u2014 she just wants to be moved or challenged \u2014 having a set populated largely by women was a far cry from how things were when she was starting out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started working, which was 150 years ago, there were no women on the set. There were no women crew. There was no woman behind the camera. If a woman was on set, that meant that she was an actress,\u201d Burstyn said in a news conference Monday. \u201cThen, slowly, thanks to blessed Gloria Steinem<\/a> who just died, the consciousness started to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burstyn is also in a feature film, Korn\u00e9l Mundrucz\u00f3\u2019s \u201cPlace to Be\u201d alongside Taika Waititi, that\u2019s playing at the festival. She\u2019s feeling \u201cslightly overwhelmed\u201d by the whole thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been asking myself, why do I deserve this? What have I done? It\u2019s a long career,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I finally came to it today that I wouldn\u2019t have had this career without my training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrating a long career <\/p>\n

Perhaps that is a bit modest for someone who has won an Oscar, for \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore,\u201d a Tony and two Emmys for her acting. In her over 50 years in the business, she\u2019s appeared in around 150 films and is a co-president of The Actors Studio. Burstyn even teaches acting classes occasionally, continuing the legacy of her mentor and acting coach Lee Strasberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer artistry, which could illuminate pain and everyday resilience with dignity, irony and courage, remains an absolute model of authenticity in performance and civic engagement within the craft of acting,\u201d festival director Alberto Barbera said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Sitting alongside Gyllenhaal the day before the big award, she described her outfit, a gown, and wondered if it was too much. Her director assured her it wasn\u2019t: This was her day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just really very happy to be here and very grateful to receive this award and grateful to this lady who put me in this interesting and deep and funny and wonderful movie,\u201d Burstyn said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

For ongoing coverage of the 2026 Venice Film Festival, visit: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/venice-film-festival<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VENICE, Italy (AP) \u2014 Of all the roles Ellen Burstyn might have been offered in her 90s, that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1049352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[100575,420253,2122,285127,171,22016,212312,420254,179182,32281,32214,49626,53,49683,67,132,68,30989],"class_list":["post-1049351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alberto-barbera","tag-amy-marentic","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-ellen-burstyn","tag-entertainment","tag-fairs-and-festivals","tag-gloria-steinem","tag-kornel-mundruczo","tag-lee-strasberg","tag-maggie-gyllenhaal","tag-marilyn-monroe","tag-movie-premieres","tag-movies","tag-taika-waititi","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-venice-film-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117231295401533021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1049352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}