Even the cast and creative team behind it Fatal attraction know it’s a stretch to remake the hit 1987 movie as a Paramount+ series, and admit they were all hesitant when they first heard the pitch.
“My first thought was, ‘Man, that’s crazy, why would you want to do that?'” recalled Joshua Jackson, who reprises the role of Dan Gallagher from Michael Douglas; Lizzy Caplan, who plays Alex Forrest from Glenn Close, also wondered, “Why would you do that? It’s perfect.”
But after talking to showrunner Alex Cunningham (who herself almost turned down the job when Paramount asked her to find a new way to explore the film), the two became hooked on the new focus on marriage, infidelity, and mental health that the original didn’t. exploring so deeply. In the series, Dan is married (to Amanda Peet’s Beth) and has an affair with Alex, which escalates into a life-threatening situation.
“I feel like the story of the movie — that’s like, ‘Nice guy, awful woman, must die’ — I think it’s really promising how far we’ve come as a culture where audiences now want to know, ‘Well Hold on, let’s talk more about her, her possible mental illnesses, her upbringing,” Caplan said The Hollywood Reporter at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday. And let’s maybe let him have some repercussions in his own personal life. It’s one of the few examples of something that made sense for me to go back.”
Close herself has spoken out about her frustrations with the film in the way her character was treated, with several members of the series revealing that they spoke to her about the update.
Jackson said he bumped into Close and told her about the show “and her response was a little lukewarm because I think for her – and she has spoken out about this, this isn’t me being mean — there are frustrations for her about how Alex Forrest’s struggles with her mental health were portrayed in the movie, and how that was just reduced to “she’s a crazy lady” trope. And so I honestly told her that that’s really the point of what we’re doing here, that we’re going to dive into that. He will have more consequences for his actions and she will also get a completeness of her story and an explanation of who and how and why she is who she is.
“She really liked that idea and the conversation basically boiled down to, ‘Interesting, don’t fuck it up,'” he joked. Cunningham also had her own interaction, as she hired Rick Caroto — who is Close’s personal hairstylist — to be the head of the show’s hair department. Caroto said Close always said someone should remake the project with an emphasis on mental health, and Close had him give Cunningham her email if she wanted to chat.
“I really thought about it and then I thought, you know what, so many people will ask her if she’s seen it and what she thinks about it, and she’s so nice that if we took her to our inner sanctum, she’d feeling like she couldn’t say she didn’t like it,” Cunningham explained. “So I sent her a long email like, ‘Look, I’d love nothing more than to use this excuse to get closer to you, but honestly I want you to be able to tell people if you don’t like it, and I know you wouldn’t if you liked us.”
The showrunner hopes to find out what Close thinks at some point, saying: “I feel like we did our version of what she wanted to see, and I think we did it with as much respect and empathy as possible . I think you can see Lizzy’s struggle and pain as you might see Glenn’s and I think even if she doesn’t love the writing she will love the performance. I am terrified, but I also know there are things she will love.”
And as for the iconic rabbit scene in the original, Cunningham said she knew there had to be a rabbit in some form, but “if you’re trying to tell a story where you’re trying to humanize someone with mental health issues, better or worse we know they can’t kill an animal.
“We definitely wanted the rabbit to be a real part of it, but I came in knowing I wasn’t going to kill it,” she added. Caplan teased that from her point of view, “Times have changed, and yet I’d argue that maybe killing a rabbit would’ve been better than what she actually does on the show.” It was very funny, it’s obviously one of the most iconic parts of that movie, but people have a bloodthirstiness when they ask the question, ‘what happens to the bunny?’ People want that rabbit to die.”
Fatal attraction begins streaming on Paramount+ on Sunday.
