16 actresses who have played Marilyn Monroe: From Blake Lively to Uma Thurman

As Ana de Armas reveals it took months to perfect Monroe's voice for her role in ‘Blonde’, we look back at more stars who have portrayed the original bombshell

Ana de Armas: The 32-year-old Cuban is the latest in a long line of actresses to play Monroe. She said nailing the blonde bombshell’s famously breathless way of speaking was 'exhausting'. PPC, AFP

Blake Lively: The actress, who is married to fellow star Ryan Reynolds, channelled Marilyn in the 100th episode of her TV show, ‘Gossip Girl’. In a dream sequence for the hit show, she recreated the song ‘Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend’ from ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’. AFP, CW Network

Ashley Judd: The actress played Marilyn before she was Marilyn, portraying the star when she was still known as Norma Jean Baker, in the 1996 HBO original film ‘Norma Jean and Marilyn’. Courtesy HBO, AFP

Mira Sorvino: The Oscar-winning actress appeared in ‘Norma Jean and Marilyn’ alongside Ashley Judd, playing Monroe when she traded in being Norma Jean to become the world-famous Marilyn. AFP, HBO

Madonna: Having long spoken of her admiration for the actress, Madonna has channelled Marilyn throughout her career. Madonna paid the ultimate homage in the 1984 video for her song ‘Material Girl’, in which she donned a replica of Monroe’s hot pink outfit from ‘Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend’ in ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’. Alamy, Film Magic

Michelle Williams: The American actress won a Golden Globe and was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress for her portrayal of the star in 2011’s ‘My Week with Marilyn’. 'Unless you study her and understand her a bit better than the commonly accepted view, one could miss who she was underneath that,' she told ‘The Hollywood Reporter’. 'Marilyn was a part she played.' Getty Images, The Weinstein Company

Barbara Niven: American actress Niven played the blonde star in the 1998 film ‘The Rat Pack’, alongside Ray Liotta’s Frank Sinatra and Don Cheadle’s Sammy Davis Jr. AFP, Shutterstock

Charlotte Sullivan: Starring alongside Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy and Greg Kinnear as JFK, the actress appeared as Marilyn in 2011 TV mini-series ‘The Kennedys’. She sang the famous ‘Happy Birthday’ to President Kennedy at his 45th birthday. AFP, Muse Entertainment

Kelli Garner: The actress admitted she almost turned down the chance to play the Hollywood legend in 2015 miniseries ‘The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe’, telling ‘Today’: 'Those are really, really big shoes. And I wasn't sure if I could pull it off.' Film Magic, Lifetime Television

Melody Anderson: The Canadian actress, who has since retired, played Marilyn in the 1993 TV film ‘Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair’, a fictional account of the alleged affair between Monroe and JFK’s brother, Robert F Kennedy. Getty Images, Shutterstock

Poppy Montgomery: Australian actress Montgomery played the celebrated star in the 2001 miniseries ‘Blonde’. 'When I told my mother I got the part of Marilyn Monroe, she didn’t even bat an eyelash,' she told ‘Entertainment Weekly’. 'She said: 'Well, you’ve been rehearsing for it your whole life'.' AFP, CBS

Susan Griffiths: The actress has carved a niche for herself by playing Marilyn Monroe in many films and shows. So far she’s portrayed the actress in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, 1993’s ‘Quantum Leap’ and the Oscar-winning 1994 film, ‘Pulp Fiction’. Wireimage, ABC

Theresa Russell: The American actress stepped into Marilyn’s high heels to play her in the 1985 British film ‘Insignificance’, which told the fictional story of four very famous people meeting in a hotel room in the 1950s. Shutterstock, AFP

Uma Thurman, Katherine McPhee and Megan Hilty: The three actresses all played Marilyn Monroe in ‘Smash’, a 2012 TV series about the putting together of a fictional Marilyn Monroe musical named Bombshell. AFP, NBC Universal

The latest actress to take on the mantle of playing silver screen legend Marilyn Monroe is flavour-of-the-year, Cuban star Ana de Armas, 32.

Fresh from her break-up with Ben Affleck, the actress will be playing the original blonde bombshell in the film Blonde, and has spoken about trying to perfect the actress's mannerisms and famously breathless voice. Blonde is due to release on Netflix in 2021.

"I tried," de Armas told The Sunday Times. "It only took me nine months of dialect coaching, and practising, and some ADR sessions.

“It was a big torture, so exhausting. My brain was fried.”

Blonde, which is directed by Andrew Dominik, also stars Bobby Cannavale, Adrien Brody, Sara Paxton and Scoot McNairy, and describes itself as "a fictionalised chronicle of the inner life of Marilyn Monroe".

"I had a lot of thoughts as a woman in the industry, and even in general, about how things from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s are so relatable to nowadays," the Knives Out actress told The Sunday Times'Style. "And how if you don't have a strong base, with your family and so on, it's really hard to make it through – really hard."

Monroe remains one of the most popular Hollywood actresses of all time, thanks to roles in films such as Some Like It Hot, The Prince and the Showgirl and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the last featuring her most famous and much-emulated song, Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.

The actress was rumoured to have had affairs with both Kennedy brothers, President John F Kennedy and the attorney general Robert F Kennedy. Having starred in 33 films throughout her career, she famously noted of Tinseltown: “Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and 50 cents for your soul.”

Monroe died on August 4, 1962 at the age of 36.

Scroll through the gallery above for 16 actresses who have portrayed Marilyn Monroe on the big and small screen.