Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe: Remembering the Iconic Actress

(upbeat rock music)

Really everything was a surprise

because I knew as much as anybody else, you know,

which is to say I just had a kind of impression of her.

So everything I stumbled across was a revelation.

Marilyn and Milton my late husband,

he was a very very good famous photographer,

they met and she had just seen his portfolio

and said these are the most beautiful pictures

I've ever seen who is this man?

And with this ta-tah, Milton walks out

and he was 30 years old and she said but you're

just a boy and he said well, you're just a girl.

Well luckily there's a lot of material out there.

There's no shortage of research, as soon as you're

done with one book, you can pick up another.

Everything I could get my hands on, footage, clips,

I mean honestly, I do feel a tremendous

amount of responsibility to the memory

of somebody and the way the person lives on

in the world and the people that admire them.

She loved to laugh and had a very strange quirky

sense of humor.

Everybody says she was a tragic figure

but she loved life, she loved what she was doing

at the moment she was doing it.

Inside we were at the shoot, there was a picture

of her up on the wall and Linda the makeup artist

was like look at her eyes, look at that vulnerability,

I said, I know it was like a child

and you see her and you want to take care of her.

It was a quality that I had never before

or have seen since.

It's like going to a museum and seeing a beautiful painting.

It reaches you somehow, touches you, it's the eyes.

It's that extra bit of, I hate the word charisma,

but that notch above everybody else,

which fascinates the world.

(calming music)