Michelle Williams almost turned down the role of Marilyn Monroe in 2011's *My Week with Marilyn*, admitting she spent months trying to talk herself out of it before accepting, according to a Far Out Magazine piece revisiting the actor's career. The film earned Williams one of her five Oscar nominations, though she lost the Best Actress award to Meryl Streep for *The Iron Lady*; the piece frames the decision as significant given Williams's reputation for taking on daunting, high-profile parts despite her preference for smaller independent films.

Williams told Vogue that as soon as she finished reading the script she knew she wanted the part, but then spent six months trying to talk herself out of it, ultimately concluding "I never really had a choice". The film, directed by Simon Curtis and written by Adrian Hodges, also starred Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier and depicted the making of *The Prince and the Showgirl*, touching on difficult aspects of Monroe's life without the harsher tone of later portrayals such as Andrew Dominik's *Blonde*. The article notes Williams has been nominated for an Oscar five times, including for *Brokeback Mountain* and *Manchester by the Sea*, but has yet to win.