Paramount+ is dropping an eight episode modern reimagining of the 80s classic Fatal Attraction this weekend, and not surprisingly, the hot topic ahead of the series’ premiere has been sex. Early reviews indicate the thriller is heavy on sexuality, and as such, stars Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan have been asked about the more adult content quite a bit. During one of those conversations, Jackson, who is no stranger to sex scenes, talked about one thing he finds very inauthentic in Hollywood sex scenes.
The reveal came from an interview with Variety. Jackson said one of his pet peeves is when there’s a sex scenes we’re supposed to believe is mind-blowing but then the characters wake up the next morning and are concerned about covering up. Here’s a portion of his quote…
One of my pet peeves is two characters have sex, and it’s the most amazing sex she’s ever had. She wakes up in the morning, and she pulls the sheet up over her breasts. I’ve never in my life had great sex with somebody and then have them be like, ‘But I don’t want you to see my nipples in the morning.
Taken from a certain angle, that quote may sound to some like Jackson is advocating Hollywood return to the past when nudity was much more prominently featured in R-rated movies, but based on his other quotes in the article, I think that would be a misread. Instead, I think what he’s saying is he wants a future in which sex and nudity are looked at more realistically, or at least differently. For him, one of the appeals of the Fatal Attraction remake was how it looks at sex through the female gaze, not the male.
In fact, Jackson, who has been in plenty of sex-forward movies in the past like the fabulous Cruel Intentions, went out of his way to praise executive producer and director Silver Tree for how she was able to shoot the sex scenes in a way that didn’t exploit women’s bodies. Here’s a portion of his quote…
God bless Silver for being amazing and coming at this from the female gaze. There are so many ways to tell the story of a sex scene that don’t need to be about certain pieces of a woman’s body. There are so many different ways that this can give you all of that stuff without it having to be exploitive of the women’s body.
Lizzy Caplan has been very open during the press tour about how much she enjoyed working with Joshua Jackson and how much of an ally she felt she had in the process. She said he was very supportive of her while she figured out her post-pregnancy body, and the two worked with an intimacy coordinator to make sure everyone was comfortable with the scenes. She called his support "true feminism."
You can catch Fatal Attraction and of course those aforementioned sex scenes on Paramount+ right now. The show also boasts an exciting supporting cast and should be fun to watch in that very specific Fatal Attraction not totally fun kind of way. If you'd like more info, you can check out our Fatal Attraction guide.
