The scene Glenn Close shot against her will: “You can’t make me do it”
The process of making movies has changed a lot for female actors since 2017, and in most cases, it has been for the better.
For decades, there were casting couches, a lack of intimacy coordinators and general bullying (see Kubrick’s treatment of Shelley Duvall during The Shining, for example), and back in the 1980s, it was something Glenn Close endured on the set of the film that would make her globally famous.
Fatal Attraction was the 1987 movie with Michael Douglas that not only spawned the term ‘Bunny Boiler’ thanks to one particularly ‘rabbit cooking’ scene but also seemed to sum up the decade in which it was made: big hair, ostentatious shows of wealth, shoulder pads and synth music. If you haven’t seen it, Close is absolutely terrifying in it, not because of any particular jumpscares or knife-wielding, although there is that, but mainly because of how plausibly sensible it all seems to her character.
The film also works so well because, despite being a maniac, you kind of understand why she’s doing it. Douglas’ character is a married man with kids who wants to have his cake and eat it, and gets found out, but in the process, does not treat Close, his mistress, fairly at all. The way that she responds, however, in full-on unhinged, burn-the-barn-down fashion, makes for thrilling watching.
Although the film was a huge hit around the world, it did not originally land too well with test audiences, mostly due to an ending that was sympathetic to Close’s character and saw the complete downfall of Douglas’ patriarch. Instead, it seemed 1980s audiences wanted her to come to a rather painful and drawn-out end, something that she was not happy about at all.
At the risk of pointing out spoilers to a film that’s almost 40 years old, in the climax of the movie, her character is repeatedly drowned in a bathtub and shot, while doing that classic action-movie thing of ‘she’s definitely dead this time, oh wait, no, she isn’t; run!’. Close lobbied hard against her character being killed off with pretty much anyone with authority she could find, but to no avail.
The writer of the story, James Dearden, recalled Close saying to him, “You can take me in a straitjacket, but you can’t make me do it”. She then went to her co-star Douglas to seek his backing, but was again knocked back, with him telling her that the new ending “may not be the best for your character, but it’s best for the movie”.
Close screamed back at him, “How would you feel if they did this to your character?” with Douglas replying simply ‘Babe, I’m a whore’. Her final attempt at getting her way was to call up her fellow actor friend William Hurt, who told her, “You’ve made your point. Now it’s your responsibility to buck up and just do it”.
So in the end, she followed the direction and filmed the demise of her character, getting dunked in the bath so many times that she suffered infections in her eyes and nose. It may all have been worth it once award season rolled around, as Close was nominated for ‘Best Actress’ amidst six Oscar nominations for the film in total, which was made on a budget of just $14million and pulled in a staggering $344m at the box office.
