Williams ‘perfect’ in role as Marilyn

McClatchy Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA

It took Simon Curtis the better part of a year — and countless emails, phone calls and a couple of trans-Atlantic meetings — to persuade Michelle Williams she was the right actress to play Marilyn Monroe.

And it probably took that long for Williams to persuade herself.

“She was quite understandably and quite appropriately nervous,” the British director says, reflecting on his protracted professional courtship of his “My Week With Marilyn” star.

Williams signed on to play the iconic American screen star — the iconic American screen star on her first trip to England in 1956 when Monroe went to work opposite the esteemed thespian Laurence Olivier in “The Prince and the Showgirl.”

“My Week With Marilyn,” which opens today and stars Kenneth Branagh in the role of Olivier, captures the clash of cultures and acting styles between the sex symbol and the Shakespearean.

Although the on-set flare-ups between Olivier (who was also directing the film) and Monroe are a big part of “My Week With Marilyn,” the plot pivots around — and is based on the memoirs of — a young British film assistant’s “amour fou” with the platinum blond. Colin Clark, a lowly gofer working his first back-lot job, apparently spent seven days in the intimate company of the actress.