The Waldorf-Astoria hums with quiet luxury — soft lamps, thick carpets, the faint echo of the city below. Marilyn Monroe, barefoot in a silk robe, paces near the window. A script lies open on the table beside an ashtray and a glass of champagne gone flat.

Here at the Waldorf Astoria, Marilyn reads Chekhov, attends acting classes, and writes in notebooks about discipline, fear, and the art of acting. It’s the perfect Guilded Cage for this most sought-after butterfly.

She turns as we enter, her expression both wary and amused. “You caught me in rehearsal for real life, this time!”

Miss Monroe, thank you for sparing time to see us. I want to introduce my friend, Miss Kayleigh Roberts. She’s long admired your courage and intelligence as much as the shimmer of your fame.

Marilyn smiles, warm and unguarded. “Hello, Kayleigh — please, call me Marilyn. And fire away with your questions.”

K: Thank you, Marilyn. I’m so grateful to you for making yourself available to us. When you think back to your childhood, what stays with you most, and how do those memories shape the woman you’re becoming now?

She curls one leg beneath her on the sofa, tracing the edge of a cushion with her thumb as if following an invisible thread: “Oh, there are flashes — bits of light and dark, like pieces of film that never got developed properly. I remember the smell of pine soap, the sound of doors closing, the feeling of waiting.

Mostly, I remember wanting to be seen — not as pretty, just seen. Maybe that’s still what drives me, that hunger to be visible, to be real. You probably understand that, Kayleigh — most women do, in one way or another.”

K: Certainly. You were once Norma Jeane. What made you choose the name Marilyn Monroe, and what does that name mean to you at this stage in your life?

She glances briefly at the mirror across the room, half-smiles, and looks away again: “The studio gave me ‘Marilyn,’ but I chose ‘Monroe.’ It was my mother’s maiden name — I thought it might protect me somehow.

Now, though, it feels like a costume I’ve worn too long. Norma Jeane was the dreamer, and Marilyn became the dream. I’m trying to find where they meet — somewhere between fantasy and truth.”

K: You’re now in New York, studying acting and trying to reinvent yourself.

If you could whisper something to the young woman just arriving in Hollywood a few years ago, what would you tell her?

She laughs softly and runs her finger around the rim of the champagne glass: “I’d tell her not to be so eager to please. I’d say that being loved by everyone can be the loneliest thing in the world.

And I’d whisper that it’s all right to be scared — that fear means you care.”

K: You’ve broken from the studio system and created your own production company, a bold step for any actor, especially a woman. What kind of stories do you want to tell under your own name?

Marilyn leans forward, lighting a cigarette, the match flaring against her pale skin: “I want to tell stories about women who think, who ache, who make mistakes and survive them.

Hollywood has plenty of goddesses — I’d rather play a woman who burns her toast and still dares to dream. It’s not about escaping; it’s about building something new that belongs to me.”