The ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ star who saw a different side of Stanley Kubrick: “He was actually a big teddy bear”
In July, 1999, Stanley Kubrick screened the final cut of his new movie to the cast and their friends. Six days later, he died of a heart attack. This made his recently completed work his last ever film, and what a film it was to go out on. It was an erotic drama starring real life couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and it was called Eyes Wide Shut.
Based on the novel Dream Story by Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler, the story follows Bill Hartford (Cruise) into a dark world of anonymous sex and mysterious secret societies, all sparked by his wife Alice (Kidman) admitting that she almost cheated on him. Eyes Wide Shut was released to the general public in September, two months after its creator’s death, and it split critics right down the middle. Some thought it was total garbage, whilst others revelled in Kubrick’s parting gift to cinema.
Alongside Cruise and Kidman, the film also stars Sydney Pollack, Marie Richardson, and Vinessa Shaw. Best known as the star of Hocus Pocus, Shaw plays Domino, a sex worker whom Hartford visits to get back at his wife. Shaw spoke to Movieline about her experiences on the Eyes Wide Shut set and gave an account of Kubrick that might have surprised long-term fans of the director.
“I heard all these stories about him being a recluse or offbeat; there was this rumor that he was difficult to work with,” she said. “I found it was quite the contrary. He was so warm and embracing of me, and he really had a nurturing quality when he was directing me. I guess I was kind of scared meeting him – I expected him to be this terror. But he was actually a big teddy bear. I really felt like that! He gave me big hugs. He was very warm.”
Shaw was absolutely bang on when she talked about Kubrick’s initial reputation. He was a ruthlessly perfectionist, often demanding near-impossible precision from his actors at great cost to their mental health. One only has to think of Shelley Duvall’s experience making The Shining; Kubrick made her do the same scene 127 times, the stress of which caused lumps of Duvall’s hair to fall out. Even on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, Harvey Keitel quit the film because he couldn’t stomach working with the director. He was replaced by Pollack.
Kubrick’s thorny reputation might have put some performers off, but not Shaw. “It was absolutely because it was a Kubrick movie!” she said of her reasons for signing on to the film. “Even though I was still young, I’d seen Lolita and Dr. Strangelove and Clockwork Orange. I thought he was an interesting, out-there director, but I really felt there was some humanity to what he was saying. But I had no sense of the scope of the legend that he was. My Mom had to tell me. I was just naturally drawn to him from the films I’d seen.”
For whatever reason, Kubrick and Shaw just clicked. Maybe the icon had gone soft in his old age and decided not to ruin a young woman’s experience working with someone she admired. Nevertheless, it’s nice to know that somebody has fond memories of working alongside a director whose name still strikes fear into the hearts of actors everywhere.
