Michael Douglas discusses sex scene scandal in ‘Basic Instinct’
The world of film has been put through a fair bit of scandalous material since 1992’s Basic Instinct. However, recently, when Michael Douglas remembered the opening of the film at Cannes Film Festival, he recalled audiences being shocked by what they saw.
The movie’s main plotline features Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell being the suspect in a murder trial before engaging in different sexual escapades with Douglas’s Nick Curran.
As the cast showed up for the premiere, Douglas remembers the unsettling feeling when it was first shown, telling Variety, “Seeing a lot of those sex scenes on the Grand Palais’ huge screen, it was a little overwhelming for a lot of people. We had a very quiet dinner afterwards, everyone was sort of digesting it”.
One of the most infamous scenes comes from an interrogation where Stone uncrosses her legs and shows a room of interrogators her lack of underwear. The content of the film became so graphic that the MPAA initially wanted to rate it NC-17 before downgrading it to R upon the studio’s request.
Though fans may have been shocked, Basic Instinct would go on to debut at number one in the American box office as well as earn Stone a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
