The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the bestselling books in modern history, with over 1.5 million sales to its name. The novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid became a huge sensation, and much like Reid’s other novel, Daisy Jones & The Six, is in line for an adaptation – Netflix revealed it was making a Seven Husbands movie in 2022, but we’ve heard little since then.
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However, the casting of the titular Evelyn Hugo has been a major talking point in pop culture, with a variety of names being put foward. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight recently, James Bond and Blade Runner star Ana de Armas (who is Cuban herself, like Hugo) tossed her hat in the ring. However, she may have already taken a role that makes playing Hugo a little harder.
Can You Play Marilyn Monroe And Evelyn Hugo?
“I would love that,” de Armas said when asked of potentially pulling on the iconic green dress of Evelyn Hugo. “I think one of the things I love about acting and my career is to be able to do everything. You have to try all the things you can.”
While de Armas is a high profile, talented actor who hails from the same place as Hugo, she has much lighter skin than is described in the book. As a result, she recently played Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, even securing an Oscar nomination for her performance. Though reductive, Hugo is something of a Monroe figure herself – a blonde, short, curvy, vivaciously glamorous star of Old Hollywood – with the key differnce being their skin tones. For some fans, the same actor should not play both.
While Marilyn Monroe’s mother was born in Mexico, she was a white woman born to white parents who had moved to Mexico for work, with Monroe’s ethnicity thought to derive from Irish and Scottish immigrants to the US.
It remains to be seen whether that will actually count against de Armas. While she could play Monroe and her vocal affectations well, she is factually a Cuban woman and her natural voice retains a notable accent. She’s also a bigger name than the likes of Eiza Gonzalez, Isabela Merced, or Melissa Barrera who have been suggested by fans, and therefore possibly has a better chance at getting cast in a movie Netflix will likely give a major push to in the hopes it becomes as viral as the book.
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We don’t know when we’ll hear more about The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but someone should be chipping their tooth on the TV sooner rather than later.
