Director Simon Curtis tackles the myth of Marilyn Monroe

With a two-decade career producing and directing TV series (Tracey Takes On) and TV movies (David Copperfield), director Simon Curtis makes the leap to the big screen Wednesday with My Week With Marilyn a tantalizing story about Marilyn Monroes 1956 visit to England to produce and star in the movie The Prince and the Showgirl.

Fans of Monroe know the story well. That film was the first project under the Marilyn Monroe Productions banner; it was the first and only pairing of Marilyn and her costar and director Laurence Olivier; it resulted in two diary-like books The Prince, the Showgirl and Me and My Week with Marilyn" by Colin Clark, the neophyte third assistant director on Prince, who unwittingly became a pal and a safe haven for the fragile Monroe during the films very rocky production.

I knew the story from reading both books, said Curtis, 51, in a thick London accent. I know other people had tried to make the film along the way, and I couldnt believe my luck that I got my hands on it.

But getting his hands on the rights was only the beginning of a long road for Curtis.

I found a producer in David Parfitt, who had done Shakespeare in Love, and together we went to get development money in the U.K. for the script, he said. That took a couple of years. Then you have to get the script good enough because when it goes out to the financiers and the actors, youve only got one shot.

Curtis, whos married to actress Elizabeth McGovern, still considers casting to be the most critical part.

It wasnt a biopic. It was a moment in time, when Marilyn was 30 and Olivier was 50. I knew we had to have a 30-year-old Marilyn and a 50-year old Olivier, explained Curtis, referring to whoever would be playing them. I had a wish list, and two people were very high up on that list: Michelle Williams (30) and Ken Branagh (50).

He got his wishes but admits that initially, both actors had some trepidation about signing on to play such iconic characters.

I mean, who would! nt? said Curtis. I had worked with Ken before (on the British TV show Performance), so he knew who I was. But I dont think Michelle did. But we met and got on really well, and she took the leap of faith.

The film provides an insiders look at the constant turmoil on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl clashes between Monroe and Olivier, between Monroes acerbic protector Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker) and everyone else as well as at the private moments of emotional stress suffered by Monroe and Olivier. But Curtis keeps the focus on Marilyn.

She came to England in 1956 so optimistic, because she was the producer, she was married to Arthur Miller, and she was coming to work with Olivier, he said. The story of our film is how all those things went wrong. The irony is, she was trying to be a producer to get away from playing ditzy showgirls, and the very first part she did was a ditzy showgirl.

Though hes produced and directed dozens of projects, Curtis still finds that being the person calling all of the shots is full of challenges.

Youre expected to be in charge of the day, he said, but the day is impacted by all kinds of things happening: An actor is late, the weather changes, someone gets ill, everyone gives you notes.

And then theres the business of dealing with a bunch of actors.

Every actor has a different version of how you, the director, can help them, he said. Some want two million notes, but some want nothing. I look at performances Ive been part of in the past. Some of them were so great, and Ive just sat back and watched. Others Ive worked really hard to support. So you have to work out how each person thinks you can help them. I think thats a mistake Olivier made with Marilyn. He didnt help her in the way she wanted to be helped.

During the research stage of My Week with Marilyn, Curtis spent quite a bit of time with a DVD of The Prince and the Showgirl, a slight film that hasnt exactly gone down well in cinema history.

To be honest, there were certa! in scene s that I watched more than the whole of it, he said. Its such a ragbag of a movie. But it was fun setting out to sort of re-create it.

But Curtis had the most fun when he found out that another of the films producers, Harvey Weinstein, had signed wildly popular Chinese pianist Lang Lang to perform the films theme music, written by the prolific Alexandre Desplat.

Curtis reaction to that: To be at Abbey Road Studios, to see Lang Lang playing the theme by Desplat, the best composer in the world, thats a good moment if youre a director.