we did in every movie, just about.” McNaughton agrees that shooting sex scenes was always “really uncomfortable”. “Because John would get really nervous when it came time to shoot that stuff. “I would have loved to have one,” says Jones. “I think we handled it in a relatively sophisticated fashion.” It was before films used on-set intimacy coordinators. Jones recalls making the scenes as “safe and comfortable” for the actors as possible. (On a personal note, I was 15 years old when Wild Things hit UK cinemas and had to watch the dreary Blues Brothers 2000 just so I could sneak into the next screen afterwards and see Wild Things. In the 2000-set Hulu comedy PEN15, teenagers get together to watch the hotly anticipated Wild Things on video – confirming the sex scenes’ crucial, erm, entry into horny teen lore. “We had to be really careful with her,” he says. According to McNaughton, it was part of her deal with Party of Five. Though – at a time when actresses going topless was almost expected – Campbell had a no-nudity clause. Richards negotiated over how many nipples would be seen (she bartered for one but ultimately showed both). It was another trick in the story – it looks like they’re being exploited, but they’re doing the exploiting.” “They were very powerful girls because they knew what effect they had. “My notion was how to portray sexual power,” says Peters. Wild Things’ sex is indeed trashy – gloriously so – but perhaps more than just gratuitous. You can take elements that would be considered trashy and put it in your work as a comment in some way.” “In the world of fine art, you can combine the high and the low,” he says. McNaughton, who explains that he went to art school rather than film school, shrewdly embraced the trashiness. “Who wins? The wealthy and powerful people lose in this movie.” Suzie’s real weapon is sex. “It’s the most political film I ever made,” says McNaughton. “They were all running an agenda against each other.” In the end, it’s Suzie – seemingly killed in the second act – who’s the true mastermind. “Because no one was ever really telling the truth,” says McNaughton. That tricksy double-crossing often proved difficult for the principal actors. many of them don’t have all their teeth!” “You have to understand where I came from,” she told him. “Neve didn’t seem like a girl from the wrong side of the tracks.” Campbell talked McNaughton round. This was one way to shake that off immediately.” McNaughton initially wanted Campbell to play Richards’s preppy princess role. “She didn’t want to be cast as a teen virgin. “That’s exactly why Neve did it,” says Peters. Indeed, the Florida locale radiates the film’s seediest impulses: hot, humid and very sticky.Īt the time of release, the major draw was Campbell – a wholesome teen in TV drama Party of Five and the virginal heroine from Scream – going goth and getting down with Richards, Hollywood’s hot new thing. “Sometimes producers actually have good ideas,” laughs Peters. Though it was originally set in a Phoenix, Arizona-like suburb, Guber – a self-styled hotshot producer – suggested relocating to south Florida, where the story tapped into class frictions: super-wealthy, influential socialites vs gator-wrestling Everglades hicks. The film was produced by Peter Guber’s Mandalay Pictures.
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