The Charlize Theron sex scene “too steamy” for cinema: “There was a much longer, more erotic version”
Sex sells. Everyone knows it, and it’ll always be true, but one scintillating scene featuring Charlize Theron went a little too far, and it ended up on the cutting room floor to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating.
It’s hard to know if the movie would be better or worse off without it, though, since it’s never been seen. The film in question was given an extended director’s cut for its home video release, but even in adding an extra 20 minutes of footage, Theron’s salacious exchange still wasn’t included.
She’d have been glad of that, since the Academy Award winner views the picture as one of the most regrettable moments of her career. Theron’s main motivating factor in boarding Reindeer Games was the chance to work with the legendary John Frankenheimer, which was nothing if not prophetic.
As a fan of the ‘New Hollywood’ heavyweight, it was an opportunity that she couldn’t turn down, and while she’s since called the turgid action thriller “a bad, bad, bad movie,” one thing she doesn’t regret is working with Frankenheimer on what would be his last feature before his death in July 2002.
Themed around Christmas and released in February, obviously, Reindeer Games follows Ben Affleck’s Rudy, a convict who assumes his cellmate’s identity. His jail buddy has been corresponding with Theron’s Ashley without meeting face-to-face, so the impostor decides to meet up with her upon his release.
They exchange pleasantries, go out for dinner, and then retreat to a cabin to get hot and heavy. Not as hot and heavy as what was filmed, however, with Affleck blaming the prudish American censors for getting too hot under the collar and deciding that their sex scene was too much for an R-rated picture.
“My sex scene with Charlize Theron was too steamy,” he confirmed. “Sex is somehow seen as more scandalous than violence. Frankly, I think the opposite is true. So, yes, there was a much longer, racier, more erotic version of the scene. And it wasn’t like we were really having sex. I mean, I had a sock on!”
Sock or not, Mr Affleck, Reindeer Games‘ boudoir antics were NC-17 material, with Frankenheimer also acknowledging that what he captured on set was so explicit that it gave the MPAA cause for concern, and apparently so explicit that he didn’t even include it in the so-called ‘unrated’ edition of the film, either.
The leading man seemed of the belief that it was something audiences deserved to see, but his director and the ratings board were in staunch disagreement. With or without it, Theron thought Reindeer Games was terrible, and a hot and heavy sequence of the two rising stars going at it hammer and tongs wasn’t going to change that.
