At Venice, Ellen Burstyn reflects on playing Marilyn Monroe and a lifetime in movies

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Of all the roles Ellen Burstyn might have been offered in her 90s, that of Marilyn Monroe, who died at 36, seemed fairly unlikely. But then one day Maggie Gyllenhaal came to her apartment to talk about a wild idea: What if she played Monroe at 100? “It sounded like a good idea to me,” Burstyn told The Associated Press.

Their 17-minute short film, “Flesh Impact,” is having its world premiere Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where Burstyn, 93, is receiving a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Ellen Burstyn’s Marilyn Monroe moment Though Burstyn never met Monroe, 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’s old books called “The Thinking Body,” which had some treasures like old receipts, inside. “I knew that she was not what she presented as her persona and that actually that’s a persona that she created,” Burstyn said. “She created the whole concept of Marilyn Monroe and played it.” Once, she saw her in a nightclub and Monroe nodded at her.

“She was so startlingly beautiful and she caught my eye and … I felt that she recognized me,” Burstyn said. And the fact that she recognized me, I just felt so honored and pleased.” 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’s 100th birthday in June. Gyllenhaal asked for a weekend to think about it, and landed on Marilyn, at 100, “doing basically the most vulnerable, one of the most vulnerable things I think an actor can do, which is audition, alone on a stage.” Burstyn was the first actor she thought of.

“I just had this feeling maybe this is an opportunity for her to think about things in a new way,” Gyllenhaal said. The two found that they shared a similar language and approach to the work. “We are interested in the depth of what’s being revealed.

And we both want to go there,” Burstyn said. “If we’re going to be doing anything, we’re gonna be doing it from there.” The Gloria Steinem effect Though nothing has really changed very much in how Burstyn chooses roles over the years — she just wants to be moved or challenged — having a set populat…