Where facially it may be easy to see Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, however her her gamine frame and indi-girl bohemian personal style contrasts greatly to the zaftig curves of Monroe. Williams will appearing in the upcoming film “My Week with Marilyn” and spoke to vogue about how she prepared herself, inside and out for the iconic role:

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“I’d go to bed every night with a stack of books next to me,” she tells the magazine in its latest cover story. “And I’d fall asleep to movies of her. It was like when you were a kid and you’d put a book under your pillow hoping you’d get it by osmosis.”

Learning the role, especially such a nuanced one, is the most important aspect for an actress’s performance, but Monroe’s public image was as much tied to her looks as her inner-self. She was a star in a bygone era that celebrated more women’s bodies in more natural shapes, which required the petite Williams to add weight to create those famous curves. As she tells the magazine, the weight went to her face, instead, and so while she learned Monroe’s walk, she had to pad herself hips to acquire the body.

Still, the normally modest Williams felt a certain transformation in her appearance and power in the role.

“But I do remember one moment of being all suited up as Marilyn and walking from my dressing room onto the soundstage practicing my wiggle,” Williams tells the magazine. “There were three or four men gathered around a truck, and I remember seeing that they were watching me come and feeling that they were watching me go–and for the very first time I glimpsed some idea of the pleasure I could take in that kind of attention; not their pleasure but my pleasure. And I thought, Oh, maybe Marilyn felt that when she walked down the beach.”

for more check out Vogue