The sex scenes that cost Kurt Russell an iconic role: “That’s just not the way I work”
Sex has, does, and always will sell across all forms of media, but it’s not a requirement for an actor to get frisky on-camera. Sure, plenty of stars are happy to bare it all to the world throughout their careers, but Kurt Russell has never been one to indulge in filmic fornication just for the sake of it.
Sometimes, a sex scene can feel gratuitous, exploitative, or shoehorned into a movie for no other reason than to try to titillate audiences. Fortunately, intimacy coordinators have gone a long way toward making the talent feel more comfortable, and performers are under no obligation to do anything they’re not comfortable with.
That wasn’t why Russell turned down an iconic role, though. Instead, he just didn’t see the point. Cack-handed coitus has stymied many a solid picture, even if the part left cinemagoers swooning. It was offered to John Carpenter’s muse first, but once Taylor Hackford told him that An Officer and a Gentleman‘s steamiest moments would exist “just beyond the bounds of good taste,” he was out.
Once Russell raised his concerns over sexual congress, his mind wasn’t for changing. Instead, Richard Gere was brought on board to play Zack Mayo and sent hearts fluttering when he embarked on a passionate affair with Debra Winger’s Paula Pokrifki in a box office smash that won two Academy Awards and cemented the leading man as one of the decade’s ultimate sex symbols, heartthrobs, and objects of desire.
In another world, it could have been Russell, and his reasons were justified. “In my career, I’ve only done a couple of scenes in which there was open sexuality, and it was always a story point,” he explained. “I didn’t find a story point in that one: they were just letting you know that people like to fuck.”
Fair enough, but it wasn’t just An Officer and a Gentleman either; Russell’s reluctance to forge the beast with two backs has always been sitting on his shoulder like a devil that’s not allowed to be horny. “My problem is that everyone knows you’re faking it,” he continued. “That’s just not the way I work. Fake-fucking is tough.”
If ever there was an inscription to be carved upon an actor’s tombstone, “Fake-fucking is tough” has got to be right up there. Hackford’s romantic drama was massive for Gere’s career, but Russell was hardly left feeling as though he’d missed out on a great opportunity by rejecting the rampant lovemaking on offer.
Principal photography on An Officer and a Gentleman ended in June 1981, and seven weeks later, Carpenter and Russell’s Escape from New York arrived in theatres, so it wasn’t like he was left stewing in his own chaste misery when he simply reunited with one of his favoured collaborators and made an instant cult classic while Gere was busy getting his kit off in Hackford’s film.
