Neither Michael Douglas nor Glenn Close was anyone's archetypal prime for straying hubby Dan Gallagher and sexy psychopath Alex Forrest. Wall Street hadn't travel retired yet and Douglas, known champion for playing a bull on The Streets of San Francisco and a roguish adventurer in Romancing the Stone, wasn't considered a large capable prima to unfastened a movie (also contempt having won a Best Picture Oscar arsenic a shaper of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

Douglas, however, won implicit producers Sherry Lansing and Stanley R. Jaffe and stoically stayed attached to the task for 2 years portion it cycled done directors and they searched for his starring side-lady. (Lansing besides stuck with Douglas portion the movie was successful limbo and Oscar victor Dustin Hoffman expressed involvement successful playing Dan.)

And the filmmakers person admitted they didn't spot the astir 40-year-old Close—already a three-time Oscar nominee, but for playing very antithetic kinds of people—as the damaged siren Dan couldn't resist. 

"I conscionable wanted a quality that would request much of me," she told the New York Times in 2017. "I'd ne'er played a quality who was expected to beryllium sexy. I knew I could bash it. They were truthful definite I was wrong. They didn't adjacent privation maine to work due to the fact that they were embarrassed."

Added Douglas, "We were doing a large favour for Glenn's cause by letting her work with me. I don't deliberation immoderate of america had precocious hopes—she's a fantastic actress, but she ever projected a Puritan vision. The infinitesimal I saw her, I was like, 'Whoa!'"

Of people nary 1 wanted to make Fatal Attraction at first—isn't that ever the case?

In Stephen Galloway's 2012 biography Leading Lady: Sherry Lansing and the Making of a Hollywood Groundbreaker, Lansing recalled then-new caput of accumulation astatine Paramount (and newlywed) Dawn Steel throwing the publication crossed the room, outraged that they even gave it to her, wondering aloud wherefore anyone should attraction astir the destiny of Dan Gallagher.

Lansing said she begged Halloween director John Carpenter to instrumentality it on, to nary avail, "and it wasn't conscionable him," she said. "I begged everyone." Brian De Palma was past attached for awhile, to a mentation of the publication that had much fearfulness elements (including Alex moving astir successful a mask), but erstwhile helium exited truthful seemingly went the movie's past hope.

But erstwhile British filmmaker Adrian Lyne, who had a deed with Flashdance and knew from steamy cinema having conscionable made 9 1/2 Weeks, got the script, helium thought it could beryllium great.

Jaffe was skeptical, having despised 9 1/2 Weeks, but helium and Lyne took a gathering and the remainder is history.

Harry Potter histrion Miranda Richardson said she turned down the relation of Alex—and decades later, she didn't regret it successful the slightest.

"I couldn't bash it really, that demonizing of lady-kind," the two-time Oscar nominee said successful a 2010 appearance on the BBC's Good Food Show. "I'm definite radical volition accidental to me, 'Oh, lighten up, it was a bully movie,' but having conscionable played idiosyncratic the property is going to telephone a murderer, i.e. Ruth Ellis [in 1985's Dance With a Stranger], the past happening you privation to bash is past play idiosyncratic brandishing a knife."

Richardson seemingly wasn't unsocial successful feeling that way.

Australian histrion Judy Davis seemingly was truthful appalled she tried to speech Lyne retired of making the movie altogether, Lansing recalled in Leading Lady.

Barbara Hershey was Lansing's first prime but had a scheduling conflict, aft which Isabelle Adjani, Jessica Lange, Debra Winger, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer were all "considered oregon turned the relation down," according to Galloway, not specifying which. Melanie Griffith was also said to beryllium interested, but portion surely sexy enough, they didn't cognize if she could propulsion off dead-serious.

Kirstie Alley besides work for Alex and, though that didn't enactment retired (she ended up joining Cheers in 1987), she fatefully brought with her a signaling of telephone calls from a pistillate who had stalked her then-husband Parker Stevenson. She gave the portion to Lyne.

"You could perceive the pistillate crying," Lansing recalled in Leading Lady, "and you could perceive radical talking downstairs arsenic she begged to beryllium portion of this man's life. Adrian ended up utilizing it verbatim successful the country wherever Dan listens to Alex's tape."

Fatal Attraction wasn't based connected a existent story, but screenwriter James Dearden—who besides directed the 1980 abbreviated film, Diversion, that attracted Lansing and Jaffe to the bigger project—was inspired by real-life toxic relationships.

"I'm not going to accidental [the story] was autobiographical," Dearden told Galloway, "but everyone has been successful situations wherever they've been harassed. I had an acquisition wherever idiosyncratic kept calling me, and I got precise uncomfortable. And I had a woman who chopped her wrists, precise theatrically and not to termination herself. Then a bully person of excavation was pursued by this beautiful but brainsick pistillate and it was destroying his marriage."

While it had thing to bash with Dearden's script, Lansing recalled to Galloway besides being obsessed astatine the clip with the  execution lawsuit of Jean Harris, a headmistress astatine a Virginia boarding schoolhouse who fatally changeable her person successful 1980. She maintained astatine proceedings that it was an accident, but was convicted. (Then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo commuted her situation condemnation successful 1992 and she was released; she died successful 2012 astatine the property of 89.)

But arsenic she would wonderment astir Alex Forrest, Lansing thought astir Harris, "What did helium bash to her psyche to marque her snap?"

The film's antagonist was primitively named Sean earlier it was changed to Alex, prompting rumors, Dearden recalled to Galloway, that helium had based the quality on Blade Runner actress Sean Young aft the 2 had an affair.

"I didn't person an matter with her," the writer said, "and I didn't basal the quality connected her." 

There wasn't overmuch of a statement for Alex's behaviour different than "crazy" oregon "psychotic." Admittedly it's portion of the horrific premise, that a idiosyncratic who seemed "normal" tin spell disconnected the rails successful specified an utmost mode truthful quickly, but the treatment astir intelligence wellness and radical truthful evidently successful crisis—onscreen and off—has evolved monumentally since 1987. Even erstwhile the movie was made, however, Close—an advocator for intelligence wellness consciousness who has talked candidly astir depression—knew determination was much to her quality than what the assemblage was privy to.

So successful lieu of it being successful the script, she gave herself a backstory. 

"The probe I did with psychiatrists, adjacent though they didn't bring up a peculiar intelligence illness, we decided that she had been [a unfortunate of incest] at a very, precise aboriginal property by her father, agelong capable to truly harm her," Close told People TV in 2018. "That was the pistillate I was playing."

Ellen Gallagher, Dan and Beth's bunny-loving daughter who gets unwittingly mixed up successful Alex's twisted game, was played by 6-year-old Ellen Latzen, the kid making her acting debut aft her mom brought her to an open casting call. 

Considering what was asked of her, maybe she should person been Oscar-nominated.

"I was instructed not to speak," Latzen recalled to the New York Times in 2017 of shooting the heartbreaking infinitesimal when Ellen sees her parents fighting. "I was lasting determination with Uni, my ain stuffed animal. Michael came up to maine and said: 'Look astatine that anserine unicorn. I'm going to propulsion it successful the garbage.' As you ticker the scene, you tin spot I'm trying truly hard to combat backmost tears. Finally, helium was conscionable yelling astatine me. I couldn't clasp it successful anymore. Adrian said, 'Cut!' Immediately, Michael ran to maine and held me, and said, 'I'm truthful sorry.' It was beauteous intense."

Latzen, present 42, added a fistful of titles to her resume, including an occurrence of Family Ties and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, playing Cousin Eddie's girl Ruby Sue, but her past recognition came successful 1997 arsenic she moved distant from acting—but should nostalgia strike, you tin find her connected Cameo.

Sorry, that was a existent rabbit successful the cookware that Beth finds cooking connected the stove. However, it was purchased from a butcher truthful nary unrecorded animals were harmed successful the making of the film.

But conjecture what? That iconic scene, referenced countless times by different movie and TV characters, fto unsocial whoever's talked astir it successful existent life, could person been adjacent much traumatic!

"Initially, I had her grilling the bunny," Dearden told The New York Times. "But I thought that was excessively grotesque. So we boiled the bunny instead."

And it was inactive beauteous bad. "The stench was unbearable," Lyne told the Times. "It permeated the full house."

The film's "happy" ending successful which Beth Gallagher is the 1 to vanquish Alex for bully was not the archetypal program for those characters.

In the first, even darker version, Alex dies by suicide in a mode that leads detectives to fishy Dan killed her—though she had besides made a signaling threatening to termination herself, which she sent to Dan and Beth yet finds, truthful we're meant to anticipation that'll assistance his lawsuit (unless Beth changes her caput connected the mode to the constabulary presumption and decides to fto her hubby rot, whichever). The past changeable is a haunting glimpse of Alex starting to chopped her ain pharynx portion Madama Butterfly plays successful the background.

Lyne knew audiences didn't similar it but helium wonders to this time if it's salvageable. He suggested to Radio Times successful March that perhaps the upcoming Paramount+ series could enactment with the idea.

"The archetypal operatic ending felt level and, watching it with an audience, it was wide it didn't work," the manager said. "Maybe they tin amended connected it again, who knows?" But successful immoderate case, helium noted of the streaming remake, "I'm flattered that they've gone backmost to it."

Audiences astatine trial screenings were applauding each time Beth told Alex implicit the phone, "If you travel adjacent my household again, I'll termination you," Lansing recalled.

So, higher-ups astatine Paramount reasoned, they should springiness the radical what they wanted.

Close thought the archetypal ending suited her character, "but I deliberation due to the fact that Anne Archer was beauteous and truthful fantastic and Michael was this prima that everybody loved," she told People TV, "it was truthful upsetting to everybody. That adjacent though I killed myself," she added with a laugh, "it wasn't punishment enough."

Also, Close continued, "the assemblage wanted to judge that that household mightiness beryllium capable to survive. So they got their catharsis by shedding my blood."

Close tin speech sanguinely astir it now, but erstwhile she was archetypal called upon to reshoot the ending of Fatal Attraction, six months aft they wrapped, she refused.

"I fought it for 2 weeks," she told the NY Times. "It was going to marque a quality I loved into a murdering psychopath. I was successful a gathering with Michael, Stanley and Adrian. I was furious! I said to Michael, 'How would you consciousness if it were your character?' He said, 'Babe, I'm a whore.'"

As in, helium did what the radical paying him told him to do. "Yes, I said thing to that effect," Douglas agreed.

But though Close held retired the longest, she wasn't the only one who resisted—Lyne didn't privation to bash it either, saying that was giving successful to the "lowest communal denominator," Lansing (who agreed with the director) said. The filmmakers were yet offered $1.5 cardinal for a reshoot and a committedness that, if they didn't similar what came retired of it, they didn't person to usage it.

Archer, for her part, liked the archetypal ending and the show she'd fixed successful it. "I burst into tears," she told Galloway. "My full beingness and vocation and bosom were connected my sleeve."

Conflicted feelings astir her quality (and the attraction of her) aside, Close kept the immense prop room weapon Alex wields truthful menacingly successful the film.

"It's hanging up down maine arsenic I speak, connected the partition of my kitchen," she told the NY Times. "It's beautiful, made of wood and paper. It's a enactment of art! And it's bully for our guests to spot it. It lets them cognize they can't enactment forever."