Cruel Intentions: Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio, Sparkle Baby, Let's make make it Sparkle Crockle Neely. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings you the secret history, a little loan, facts behind your favorite music, movies, TV shows and more. We are your two step brothers of study. My name's Jordan runtag No. Do that again, Write something better and come back to me. I'm Alex Cycle. And today we are talking about what's perhaps the most twisted of anything that came out of the nineties teen movie Boom, a movie about deception, seduction, borderline incest, and cocaine stuffed in a crucifix. We can only be talking, of course, about cruel intentions. For those of you not familiar with the plot, it centers around a pair of obscenely rich Upper east Side teens, the icy and sociopathic Catherine Murtu played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, and are equally ruthless stepbrothers Bastian Valmont and to pass the time on summer, these step siblings decide to set a little wager ken Sebastian bed the headmaster's daughter if he fails, Sebastian has to give Katherine his beloved vantage Jaguar. If he succeeds, Katherine will give him what he's always wanted since their parents got married. That's right, go less tell him what he's won. He gets to put it wherever he wants with his step sister. Yes, that's yes. Truly reads like a no Henry short story. Um, I'm sorry to the oh Henry estate. Yeah, we were talking earlier and I said that I feel like this episode will provide an unsettling insight into both of our psychological makeup, to which you very sweetly responded by saying, oh, we're way past that. Um. Yeah, I just love Sarah Michelle Geller in this. The older I get, the more I realize I sort of love evil. Maybe it's a counterbalance to my own personality. I don't know why. I basically feel like I'm drawn to two general arc at types, the sweet Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years types and Sarah Michelle Gellar in cruel intentions, a woman who wouldn't hesitate to step on my neck and her stilettos. So I don't know anyway, What do you think about this movie? High, but that's tough about me. Oh it's a great film. I mean, it's just so tightly constructed and everybody is playing their respective archetypes perfectly. Writing is really sharp, it's got a great look. Yeah. Man, it's just it's a perfect little gem of a movie. And it is so mean and nasty and frankly, it's like I don't really love watching like the Tales of the Idle Rich, Like it just usually infuriates me, but like, this is kind of what I actually think they're up to. It's just like people. Yeah, and so for that reason, I'm like, yeah, yeah, Okay, I'm in. I mean, I'm I'm on board. And that's why I'm so excited to talk about this movie. I mean, it is so compelling, from taboo relationships to the nature of how sex and powers intertwined and the question of personal redemption. You know, it's a rich text. Some of us them on and you'll learn about how Ryan Philippi threw up on the set, how they got Reese Witherspoon drunk to get her to sign on, and why Katie Holmes got the boot from the cast. You also hear how a pornographic actress created a stir on the set, how Selma Blair prepped for that famous kissing scene with Sarah Michelle Geller, and why Ross Geller from Friends is partially responsible for making this all happen. Plus will talk all about the ill fated attempts to bring the story to television and why to fake cocaine on the set gave Sarah Michelle Geller an allergic reaction. So, without further ado, here is everything you never knew about Cruel Intentions. We have a writer director named Roger Cumbelt to thank for Cruel Intentions. We also have him to thank for the Less Good two thousand to rom com The Sweetest Thing with Selma Blair, Cameron Diaz and Crisina Applegate, but also the severely underrated Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart. I don't know, did you like this movie? Maybe it was just underrated to me because when it came out, I was in high school and the whole being friend zoned with your best friend concept deeply resonated with me. But we all were at your combo Cruel Intentions. Up to this point, his career had been in the theater. Cruel Intentions was his first movie which is like the director of Greece that was his first like big budget major movie too, so incredible first time out for him. And Cruel Intentions. It comes from two key sources. As with all good tales of romantic perversity, we got to take it over to nineteenth century France. The most obvious inspiration for Cruel Intentions is the French novel Li liaisone dangerous You're You're thank you that was published by who's the published by Heigel who's the author? I'm not even reading that one, Pierre Chandeleros de lack Close in seventeen eighty two. Uh. Funnily enough. Sarah Michelle Geller is a big book collector and reportedly has an antique copy of one of the first printings of Dangerous Liaisons in its original French. The plot of this book is similar to the movie We Know and Love as Cruel Intentions. It follows two exes who seduce others for power and influence. Is there any other reason why you seduce? Really? The book Dangerous Liaisons has been adapted into film a number of times over the years. Uh, most notably in nineteen fifty nine, the French director Roger Vadim later of Barbarella Fame did a version that was set in the modern day, and director Stephen Frears made probably the most famous version in night Dangerous Liaisons with John Malkovich, Glen Close, Shell Feiffer and Uma Thurman, which was later nominated for seven Oscars, winning three. And then just a year later, director Milos Foreman, who did One flu of the Cuckoo's Nest, very famous director, made the film of Valmont with Colin Firth, Net Benning, Meg Tilly and for Who's a Bulk of the Craft and the water Boy fame. So the source material for the plot of cruel intentions, It's been around for a very long time. You Alan Rickman made the role of val Mont famous on London and Broadway. No that ah, that makes sense though he was not even considered for the ninety eight movie because he was such an unknown, but he ended up starting Hiss, Hans Gruber and die Hard his first Hollywood role that year. So he came out of worked out far. I'm good, he deserves it. They were the two competing versions of that. You know we mentioned um Dangerous Liaisons was AD eight and then Valmont was eighty nine, right, yeah, and so Christopher Hampton directed the play version of Valmont, and he said he was supposed to have a meeting with Milos Foreman to talk about making this film adaptation after Foreman attended several stagings of the play and Foreman ghosted him, so he was like, I guess not involved in the movie that much. And then um, the studio ended up rushing. They found it was like the Zantad thing where they found out that there were competing dangerous the Asians adaptation being made, so they rushed. Uh, the Stephen Fears went to the box office, ended up burying the Milos Foreman on. So Holly weird, bad place. And the second and much lesser known influence on Cruel Intentions was indie movie called Welcome to the Dollhouse and it was written and directed by Todd Salance and it was this extremely extremely black comedy about a teenager desperately vying for popularity at her school. And it was dark and mean. There was a scene I think where the main character like holes a hammer over her little sister's head while she sleeps, and then somebody like their neighbor who's a pedophile, ab ducks the young girl and takes her to New York City, and all of his films are so so his stock and trade, dark and mean, and Roger Comboll absolutely loved it. He said he'd never seen something set in school that was so dark. I guess I don't know. I'm thinking of Heathers, but this is probably darker than that. Um. So, the fusion of these two ideas, dangerous liaisons and an extremely dark high school store, this Welcome to the Dollhouse movie led to Roger Humbell's big Aha moment, the moment when the idea called out and said take on me, take me on, I'll be gone. Can you do it in a day? I can to that moment. Yes. Um. He wanted to use the plot of dangerous liaisons with a fantastically bitchy high school story, and instead of the aristocracy, it would be wealthy Upper east Side brats at a fancy Manhattan prep school. Roger Vadims nine adaptation have been set in modern day, so Kumble was confident that it could be done, and in interview with Cosmo, he said, quote, it was one of those moments when you're just walking across the street and the idea popped into my head to do dangerous liaison set in high school and I molded over for a year and it was a busy year. Roger Kumble, as I said earlier, had a background in theater, and he launched a play called D Girl, which is short for development girl, or a person who goes through movie pitches at a studio. And it's not surprising that this was the mind who created Cruel Intentions because D Girls about a screenwriter seducing a younger woman, the titular D Girl. It's a star. They got David Swimmer, who was at the peak of his world, conquering friends, fame, and Kamba said that casting Swimmer it was a game changer for me, and when the play was a hit, he started to get attention in industry circles and figured that this was his shot at making a movie project. As he later said, I had some heat and I didn't want to lose it. Literally the day the play went down, I went to Mexico and I wrote Cruel Intentions in twelve days twelve So thank you, Ross Keller. Kumble originally planned to make his directoral movie debut as a tiny indie movie with just a million dollar budget. Then it got the attention of a producer by the name of Neil Moritz. It was just about to become huge thanks to the success of I Know as You did Last Summer and it's sequel, I know what you did last summer too, No harder back in the habit A good day to know what you did last summer, last summer. There's gotta be another There's gotta be another sequel and we can we can get in there. I know what you did last summer to the Two Towers. Uh. He would also do Fast and Furious Jump Street, I am Legend, the sonic of the Hedgehog movies. So once he signed onto this things escalated. Kamba was originally considering getting Jonathan Myers to play the part of Sebastian Valmart but then Maurice was like, hey, I just made this movie. I know what you did last Yeah, with Sarah Michelle Geller and Ryan Philippi. Why you checked them out? He knew of Sarah Michelle Geller mostly through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he was just not super familiar with Ryan Phillippy, but he liked him because he had just that kind of Valmont air about him. Why he's punchable. Yes. Sarah Michelle Geller was pumped to take this role because she was ready for a different kind of movie. Um. She had done the two seasons to date on Buffy, but she had then played back to back murder victims in Scream Too, and I know she did last summer, so she was ready to take on something a little bit different and give herself some distance from Buffy. Uh. It was her idea to die her trademark blonde hair dark, and she strongly resisted any attempts from humbold to make that character sympathetic. Sarah Michelle Geller herself grew up on the Upper East Side, so she knew that world and um brought a lot of nuance to the uh bitchiness for lack of a term. Yeah, and she you know, did have a bit of this in her CV. I mean she was on the she was on All My Children for a while, she playing the villainous Kendall. So you just know that woman was bad bad news. Apologies to any Kendall's who may be listening to this show. Uh. Talking to Premier Magazine in Sarah Michelle Geller said, we had long talks about her history Roger used to always say, don't you think she was abused? And I'd say no, I think she had a perfect upbringing. I think her mother adored her and her father sent her amazing gifts. She just wanted more. Um and Sarah Schelle Geller's extremely proud of this role. She later told Huffington Post that was one of her two best film experiences. What would the other one? Do you think maybe Scooby Doo? Because I assume that's wished. She met Freddie press Jr. Oh yeah, I guess that's true. Scooby Doo. Anybody's favorite film experience? Um? Yeah, but she never got she met Freddie Britten's so very cute. Uh. She said, we just knew we were making something that was so different, and we were also passionate and so excited, and we were all friends. It was just a great time making that and letting it go as far as it did. One person who was not impressed with cruel intentions was Buffy creator Joss Weeden, who dismissed the film as a porny. That's not a type of that's not that's what he said. I think he's at a porny. That's weird. Grown man calling pornography a porny that's weird and gross at a Television Critics Association press conference. Sara Michael Geller was less than pleased with this assessment, and she told Premiere At magazine at the time that she said, I did what I think is my best work to date in that movie. Brushing it off by calling it a porny is unbelievably hurtful to me. He owes me flowers, and that's on the record. She uh, you know, came out on top in when U Charisma Carpenter from Buffy made allegations of abuse against Joss Weeden. After those allegations were public uh, Sarah Michelle Geller issued a statement saying, well, I'm proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers. I don't want to be forever associated with the name Josh Weeden. The only thing she didn't like about playing the quote Marcia Brady of the Upper east Side was the fake coke that she had to snort, which was made of ground up camel meal. I did not know that that's what they use in movies for fake It's what they've used on this movie at least interesting. Well, she was allergic. U. Yeah, and she said my nose and throat had it rough for a while, which, sure, it's not supposed to have that kind of stuff put up in it. Yeah, I'll do it. Do you know that Buffy was produced by Dolly Parton's production company. Dolly Parton has like credits on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dolly Parton is like the Forrest Gumbo. That means she's semi indirectly funded the vaccine, the COVID vaccine. She like has just made so many different beloved things. Ah, Dolly. Well, the roles of brother and sister Katherine and Sebastian were cast fairly easily. You got Ryan Phillippi and Sarah Michelle Galler, but the search for the headmaster's sweet virginal daughter was a bit trickier. The studio really wanted Katie Holmes, who was appearing as Joey on Dawson's Creek at the time, but director Roger Kumbell disagreed, later telling Cosmo that the part quote needed someone with a little more strength of character, which Ouch. The situation reached the stalemate one night when he was hanging out with Ryan Phillippi and said, Hey, what about your girlfriend, meaning Witherspoon front of the pod Reese Witherspoon. The couple began dating in seven, when Philippie crashed Witherspoon's twenty first birthday party. Now, Reese was a rising star at this point, having already made pleasant Phil and Fear and plus you also had the real life chemistry with her boyfriend, so it seemed like a good fit. But Witherspoon required some convincing to take the role because she felt like a Net was just a typical boring, you know in quotes good girl, a k A. Too close to some of the roles she'd played in the past. So director Roger Kumbell took Reese and Ryan to Le Petite Bistro, which was this fancy French place that was an industry staple in l A at the time, and proceeded to literally wine and dine her under Cumbell told Cosmo, so basically, we took Reese out to dinner to get her drunk, and we ended up getting her drunk, and I literally got down on my knees and begged her, please, It'll be fifteen days. You'll be great. Not especially dignified, but it did the trick, though she had some terms. Rees agreed to take the part, but insisted on tweaking the character so she was stronger. And if you remember Michelle Peiffer's character and dangerous liaisons Madame de Trouvel, her entire personality was essentially being as pure as the driven snow. I mean, there was not really much else there. Roger Kumbel later said, Reese and I got together and we gave a net more bite. So she wasn't a doormat as opposed to her, you know, corresponding character and dangerous liaisons and a very grateful day for that, kumble said. So that's why Katie Holmes didn't make it into cruel intentions. But there is another. Dawson's Creek veteran Joshua Jackson appeared in the film as Blame Tuttle, Sebastian's partner in crime, the kid with the truly Awful for Us A Tips died job. I'm waiting for the Zoomers to pick up Frosted Tips Man. Yeah, that's I mean, we got Jake and everything else. They're grabbing everything else from late nineties. Come on, you guys, gotta you wanta go Hohle Hog on this you commit, you get the frosted tips. There's also a pre American pie Tara Reid in the film. She's Marcy Green bamb who calls her Si Kaiatrist mother after Sebastian Leak's nude photos of her. Uh. But Reese Wetherspoon wasn't the only cast member who needed convincing to sign on to cruel intentions. Christine Baranski, who played Cecil's strict mother Bunny, called well said that she was going to pass on the role. Once again, Roger Kumble got down on his knees, though perhaps not literally this time. Baranski later told The l a times, I had to be talked into doing that one. It was gonna be shot during my first year hiatus from the TV show Sybil Sybil Shepherd, and I was anxious to go home and be with my kids. The director begged and begged me and said, it's only a few scenes. I think she only need to work for like three days. And also her daughters were massive Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, so when they found out Sarah Michelle Geller was involved, they pestered their mother to take the role, and it ended up paying off artistically and financially. She said, I'm still making residual money off cruel intentions. It might be the movie that's maybe the most in residuals because it's such a hint. I didn't do much in that movie, and yet will come up to me and quote my lines. Just not that for three days work. And speaking of the cowdbull family, we have to talk about Cecile, the true stand out in a film packed with memorable characters. She was played, of course, in inimitable fashion by some of Blair, and some of Blair showed it up to the audition basically ready to tape. Uh cumbolto Cosmo, it was the smartest audition I've ever seen in my career. For legal reasons, he had to ask all of the actors auditioning for the role how old they were, because there's a graphic sex scene with Sebastian in the movie and the character is supposed to be fifteen. Uh Kumble said, So we're bringing in all these people and they were all good, but I'm selma come in and I said how old are you? And she goes, in Cecil's brady voice, how old are you? Had the impression was incredible. Thank you for that. And she was so obnoxious and I couldn't get it out of my head. Um, and this is now. This is of course, where we get into classic nineties tri up of having people in their twenties play high schoolers. Someone plays one of the youngest characters in the movie. As a fifteen year old, she was one of the oldest actors in the main cast. She turned twenty six during the shoot. Sean Patrick Thomas, who played her love interest, was thirty. He looks at yeah, he does. He looks kind of rough. Ryan Philippe was twenty five recent this room is twenty three, and Sara Michael Geller, the youngest of the bunch, was only twenty two years old, so she was conceivably with thin spitting distance. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more too much information in just a moment. Another important character in the film is, of course, Sebastian's car, which is plays a central role in the famous bet is a nineteen fifty six Jaguar x K one forty roadster, or at least that is what they would have you believe, but it's actually a replica built by a company called Cinema Cars, which builds replicas of these super expensive collectible cars that would not otherwise be loaned out to film shoots. For example, Cameron's dad's Ferrari in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a replica built by this company on a Corvette chassis was built by this company. But these types of companies, which I didn't realize existed until searching this. I'm an old car buff guy. I had no idea, and yeah, I was gonna say, uh, Sebastian's jag regularly retails for upwards of a hundred grand. Rather than risk it, they went with the dummy. Speaking of the set direction in production design of this movie, it's also well done. I mean. The costume designer Denise Wingate, in an interview with Days, talked about putting some of Blair in that red hoodie when she goes to leave to see Sebastian, thus making her look like quote a contemporary little red riding hood going to see the Big Bad Wolf. Wingate also wanted Catherine and Sebastian's wardrobe to basically play up the darkness of their characters, which is why they're often dressed in black, whereas Net is usually dressed in these brighter, more angelic colors, Um saying when he gets hit by a car and sees her, it's almost as if she's an angel. At the time, Brian Phillippe said this dichotomy very much mirrored their own personalities. He said, there's a definite balance. There is a happy, lighthearted person, but she's also incredibly intelligent. I tend to be considerably darker. She keeps me from getting too dark and depressed, and that's essential in a business that's based on uncertainty and insecurity. This darkness was also played up in the literal sets of the film. Designer John Gary Steele ensured that all of the locations that they were allowed to paint were painted in dark colors. This is because he said, I see the movie is very much a tragedy. Since we were using a young cast, I didn't want it to feel like a young, bright teen film because it's not. It's very trad Jake, everyone basically loses. I just like to pause for a moment and reflect on just how dark this movie actually is. This really savor it. The director tells this funny story of Ryan Phillippi coming up to him at one point during the shoot and saying, when you really break down this movie, it's really about me wanting to have animal sex with my sister. Roger Kumbel said, well, yeah, that's it's an interesting way of looking at it and never thought about that, but yeah, sure like there's some good textual analysis. Ryan, thank you for that. Because Roger Humble had more of a background in comedy, he was able to temper the darkness slightly with jokes to make it more palatable. But he later described the way that Sarah Michelle Geller could just deliver these devastating lines. He said, she didn't even have to lean into the dialogue. The dialogue carried the weight, so she could say the most horrible things as if she was just ordering food. It's a great way to describe it. Amazing. The German version of cruel intentions is called I scouta and thank you yes, which translates to ice cold angels, which rules, um, yeah, there's uh sex of basically every permutation in this movie. There's men and women, men and men, women and women, brothers and sisters. Uh did I miss anything? No? Dog, You'd be forgiven for thinking that the sexual tension on the set of this movie could be unbearable, but Joshua Jackson told Entertainment Weekly that the vibe was quote playful, and that was nice because my first day was doing this scene where I'm giving a blow chop and I was diving into the deep end, he said. And there was one scene from the film that was ultimately cut where Sebastian is on the phone with a net and to emphasize the difference between her sweetness and his debauched lifestyle. In the background when he's on the phone are two naked cheerleaders oiling themselves up all he speaks to a net, and according to Roger Humboldt, this was just quote to show what a cat he was at that stage. And for that, I wanted to see some gratuitous nudity, but I didn't want some girl crying on her trailer about having to get naked. My parents did raise me that way, he said. I didn't want to force anybody, so I was like, I know, I'll hire an adult film star. They have no problem with that. So Kumble hired a woman named Alicia Klass, whom he considered quote the biggest star in adult films. In the late nineties, and she was hired to play the aforementioned naked cheerleader. However, rather than having a performer who was uncomfortable with being naked, Alicia Klass was perhaps a little too comfortable. Kumble recalls customer Denise Wingate coming into his office one day and saying, we've got a problem the women on the set of a problem And he's like, what's going on? She said, your actors at catering and she's wearing just a fish net whatever body skirt and basically flashing all of us. And Kumble said, so it was like a no good deed situation where I just didn't want to force an actor to go topless in a scene. I got the one person with no inhibition and now I'm like the pig in front of all the women on the crew. Ultimately, it was all for naught and the scene was cut because it tested poorly and just seemed a little too good to it us. But Kamba said that she was extremely sweet Alicia Klaus and even brought some of her DVDs as gifts for some of the grips. Very nice. I just want to read a section from her Wikipedia page here which is Uh. Class began starting in portographic movies around becoming the best known collaborator of director Seymour Butts aka Adam Glasser, to whom she was once engaged. Class had a tattoo on her rear reading Seymour Butts. However, following an acrimonious breakup in two thousand, she since had it covered with a dolphin. It's a bet affle like I have a dollphel on his back too. No, he is the Phoenix is the full back tattoo of the phoenix. But without question, the most memorable, impactful what's the word I'm looking for? Whatever the case, The scene that will forever live in infamy is the scene where Sarah Michelle Gellar's character is giving young Cecile played by Selma Blair, kissing lessons in the middle of Central Park. Adorably. Selma Blair admitted to feeling deeply nervous before the shoot. She said, I'd never kissed a girl before. I remember, I was like, what if I'm a really horrible kisser. Apparently she had nothing to worry about, because Sarah Michelle Geller was extremely complimentary in interviews over the years, saying, oh, I remember was thinking I could kiss Selma all day. She told Entertainment Weekly her skin was so soft. My skin is really sensitive, so when I kiss on camera lot, it gets raw. In that Entertainment In that Entertainment Weekly thing, there's a great line where Sama Blair says that her mom, when she saw the scene for the first time, she told Selma, honestly, Selma, did you have to use so much tongue that poor Sarah? She looks so delicate and then you just have that goliath in her mouth. That was someone players mom, So poor poor sols nerves weren't helped by the fact that they shot the scene on the very last day of filming, so the anticipation had been building. I think the film shoot went from June nine July, so if anyone's a time machine and wants to go to Central Park, there you go. Now another day, uh. And there were hundreds of extras and photographers around and and it ended up making tabloid headlines the following week. And she said, we saw headlines that said something like, Sarah spends a day in Central Park with a friend somewhat remembered. I guess they all had their telescopic lenses ready that day and the scene is I can't believe I'm about to say this. The scene is memorable because of a bit of spittle that appears as they pull away from one another. Initially, one of the dps was pushing to shoot the scene again, but Roger Cumbell held fast for his art. He said, I forgot who but someone said we need to go again. There's saliva connecting them, something I've never said out loud. And our cinematographer said no, it's beautiful, and I was like, no, it's hot. I mean, we'll go again, but I think it's cool. So it was a happy accident and it's kind of been remembered for that because something about all these dudes, young women kissing the park and me like, yeah, go again, good, go again, one more time. But Geller and Blair won the Best Kiss Award at the two thousand MTV Movie Awards for that scene, beating out such heavy hitters as Hilary Swank and Chloe seven Yer and Boys Don't Cry, Drew Barrymore and Michael Verton and Never Been Kissed, and Katie Holmes and Barry Watson in Teaching Mrs Tingle. Poor Katie Holmes and cruel intentions. Always a bridemaid didn't get the role. They wouldn't let her live up someone with more force of character. What a brutal thing to say about not casting an actress. Damn. But Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle geller If remain close in the US years since making cruel intentions, which I really like. They frequently post girl crush photos and tbts of each other girl crush being there whereas not mine. Not long after Selma revealed her MS diagnosis, she posted a very sweet tribute to Sarah Michelle Gellar for supporting her, calling her quote an angel of a friend, which I think is really nice. She wrote, this girl always, my girl is everything. She tucked me in and brought me dinner and loved me up. I woke up with so much love for Sarah Michelle Gellar since the day I met her over twenty years ago. She fought for me along with Roger Kumbel to besa seal. She took me under her wing and today is no different. I'm so in love with my angel of a friend, the best even through me my baby shower and is there for me every step of the way, maybe we all have a friend like this. I love you, Sarah, Michelle Geller and my whole team of lovely I count my blessings. Speaking of bodily fluids, where there's where there's smoke, there's fire, and where there's spit, there's vomit. Yes, Witherspoon, no Smotherspoon made her then boyfriend Ryan Philippy throw up after a particularly intense scene. Do you feel about that? I don't know anything about Ryan Philippi, but he's got that like Tom Brady energy to me, so that like when bad things happened to him, I'm all in. He's just too pretty. He's got that that yalely you know, roofy people and face. I don't know anyway. Uh. Sebastian has fallen in love with Annette, who is the subject of the bat, and he's basically no longer interested in Katherine, who you know, the aforementioned you can put it anywhere his stepsister, yep, the only reason for taking them beat in the first place. Catherine forces Sebastian to break up with a Nette, which leads to a heated argument between the two of them, during which Annette slaps him across the face. This was not planned. Ryan later told The Morning Call. At one point, I was improvising off camera for Reese. I guess I said some pretty mean things, so she came over and slapped me. Roger loved it so much he incorporated it into the scene, so I basically got slapped around for a couple of hours. This scene was This scene was not. Yeah, try working in digital media. Uh. This scene was not easy for either actor, considering they were dating at the time. But it's took take after take after take, and Roger Crumble said, you know, I want to be professional, but until like I feel like we have it, you just have to go. As a director, You're like, I'm not going to be the most liked person today, he said. I don't think we did too many takes, but you know, you get what you need to get. You really want to see him ripping his heart out. So Ryan says, they shot this for four straight hours and he uh left the set, went outside and vomited. He said, it was so emotionally punishing for me that he went outside and literally threw up. So good for him, As is so often the case in life. Let us go from the breakup scene to The sex scene one of many in this movie, but it's the one that everybody probably remembers the most. Between Ryan Phillippi and Reese Witherspoon. Is scored by Counting Crows haunting song color Blind, and that song has become so identified with that scene to me at least, that it's difficult to imagine anything else in there for the soundtrack. But color Blind very nearly was not used. In Cruel Intentions. Director Roger Kumbell said the one of the scene to be beautiful and not exploitative. He compared it to a love scene in Robert Altman's The Player with Tim Robbins and grettas Sketchy Scotchy and grettis Jim Robbins with just Jim Robbins is in it. Uh. In that Cosmo interview, Roger Kumbell is a funny line about doing these kinds of scenes. He said, what I do in situations like that and anything I'm working on is I just dropped the pretensions of the job and go, okay, let's deal with the elephant in the room. I'm about the film of sex scene with you, and I feel weird. And then usually the actors are like, no, no, no, we get it. It's weird, and then I go, how do I make it? That's weird. Let's all be on the same page. So that's nice. Now. Over the years has been a great deal of speculation as to whether Reese and Ryan We're actually having sex on camera for real, since they were together in real life and people have no chill in their imaginations. Director Roger Kumba, whoever, was confirmed that the sex was simulated. The actors were not even fully naked when filming the scene, since in the scene each one is only visible from the waist up. But the intensity of the scene is definitely heightened by the song color Blind. But amazingly, as I said earlier, that was not the song that was originally supposed to be in there. Kamba wanted to use the song to Sheila by the Smashing Pumpkins that was very much in his head the whole time. In fact, he says he wrote the scene while listening to that song on repeat, but sadly, Billy Corgan and the band turned him down, and this occurred fairly late in the production, so the team had to really scramble to find a replacement track for the sex scene and Kumba wanted to track initially by Neil Finn of Crowded House fame Don't Dream It's over a Crowded House. Yeah yeah, but the studio we're not into the idea. So they kind of found themselves at a creative stand still until Adam Derrett swooped in and saved the day. Apparently he saw an early cut of the movie and loved it, and, according to Kumble at least wrote the song almost immediately after and sent a demo to the production team, and Kumble and producer Neil Murritz went to the house that Counting Crows were renting and watched them record color Blind a couple of days later, and that became a stand up cut on the soundtrack. Yeah yeah, Adam Durretts or whoever is running the Counting Crows Twitter confirmed that I was just looking that up. So that is like for a band that I tend to. You love Counting Crows, don't you even you you talk about Counting Crows when like hang you like hanging around a lot. I wrote a a treatment for a script making one of that song. Really, why did you keep trying to get us to cover it? That? Because I thought it was I thought it was a funny thing to cover. I just thought, and I also thought you'd do a good job of it. And it was maybe I like counting Crows. I think round here, Oh ways, that song around here. I think there's I probably like more songs by them than I realized. But color blind is like, that's got a punch to it. That sounds devastating. I had a roommate in college. We each had her own bedrooms, but be sure the kitchen common area, and he had a literal ceed mix that was his sex mix, and it opened with color Blinds. And so whenever I heard that song start, I still did this day of a Pavlovian responsive, like, oh I gotta get my white noise machine. So you put like a playground love by air, you know what? Actually tell you what that might have been on there too? Definitely something from the Virgin Suicide on track, Yeah, the same arrow. I just had pan stuff online. Bump up no no, no, no no no, or brings a whole meaning to in the mood. It's just the chips a hoy dude, bump bump bum How dare you as you meditate on that, We'll be right back with more too much information. After these messages, you cannot talk about the music in cruel intentions without talking about the elephant in the room. And that is Bitter Sweet Symphony obviously not written specifically for the film, but it plays during the climax of the movie as a Nett gets revenge over Catherine following Sebastian's death and then cruises off in his jag with his journal by her side. But the song very nearly did not make it into the movie because everything about it is a Copa esque bureaucratic nightmare. Couple said that he wrote the scene to the music without getting the rights first, which you said is a big no note on screen. Ren In school they tell you never put songs in scripts because all that the people read again will do is just see a bunch of like dollar signs that they don't want to spend. Yeah, never do that. Yeah. Maurita told an entertainment weekly that song cost close to a million dollars, which is a tenth of the budget. They tried like hundreds of other songs and they just said nothing else worked, so they ponied up for him. That's insane. They spent a tenth of the budget on that song. Kumbolt told Cosmo, it just fit amazingly, the strings hitting and she's breaking down on the podium and then you cut outside right when the song kicks in. Just accomplished everything. And he says, so we're like, oh, let's get the rights from the Verve, but then you find out the Verve doesn't own the rights. The Rolling Stones on the rights, so it was a headache. It was one of those things with the studio was like, try another song, and we kept trying and trying and no one could agree, and the studio was like, let's just pay for it. We paid for everything, but we really paid for that one. So the story behind Bittersweet Symphony is that it is based on a sample from a nineteen sixty five version of the Rolling Stones song The Last Time by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, and that was the Stones manager at the time, back in the sixties. That was his side project. He basically got a bunch of session musicians, including members of the Rolling Stones, in to uh, you know, record different versions of these songs and an easy listening album that's really weird. I I like it, but I'm also eighty three years old. Well, so apparently they obtained the rights to use that sample from the copyright hold A Decca Records, but they were on permission from the Rolling Stones X manager Alan Klein. So they ended up forfeiting all royalties from that song, which was a hit, a huge hit, their biggest American hit. That and the Drugs Don't Work yep. Forfeited all royalties from it to uh the Rolling Stones what do? Who do? They forfeit them too? Because I know Jagger and Richards were added to the credits, but I think the Stones got the money for it for I think they gave it back recently, like in the last couple of years. I believe I'm just doing this from memory. Yes, no, no, Yeah, Ashcroft got a thousand dollars from it following the settlement, but know the rights did revert back to him. This was in nine so he's back to making money on it twenty five years later. Good lord. Yeah, And I guess admirably Jagger and Richards were like, man, we don't really need the money anyway. That's story bitter sweet. It was indeed hit, and ate just rights itself well, speaking of the ending of cruel intentions, which is perfect and satisfying and surprising. It could have been different, although sort of only slightly. You remember that Sebastian is having a fist fight with Ronald, Cecil's boyfriend because Catherine told Ronald that Sebastian had an affair with Cecile, and in the actual ending, a Net runs over to the pair as they're fighting and having a tussle on the sidewalk in Central Park. Tries to pull him off one another, but then she tumbles into oncoming traffic and Sebastian valiantly pushes her out of the way gets struck by a cab, leading to his death. In an earlier version, he dies in a kind of less gallant manner. He's in the middle of his fight with Ronald and then he sees a Net approaching and crosses the street to greet her when he is struck by a cab as he sort of eagerly running across the street to see her. Very mean girls, very like when Regina gets hit by the bus. Yeah. More interesting to me is that another early draft of the script involved in ending with a Net instead of publishing Sebastian's journal to embarrass and expose Catherine in front of the entire school. She simply uses it to blackmail Catherine privately. You know how they have that scene where they meet up in the bathroom right before she gives us the eulogy for her stepbrother. I would imagine in there she probably, like you know, confronts her with what she knows, and but not a cinematic not as big you know, the whole student body holding this you know, purloined, scandalous burn book of a diary. Uh not, it was dramatic, So they went with this new ending that we now know and love. Uh. Cruel Intentions, speaking of which is such a fantastic title. That's the name of Sebastian's journal when it's published and distributed around the school. But the name Cruel Intentions was something of a last minute change up. A few years back, Sarah Michelle Geller posted a photo to Instagram from the kickoff dinner for the movie back and in the caption she said that the original title for the movie was actually Cruel Inventions, and apparently this was changed because Cruel Inventions didn't test well with audiences because I guess people thought it sounded more like a science fiction film instead of whatever you wanna call Cruel Intentions comedy drama. Think of it was more of a comedy, more of a drama drama, okay, or a black comedy. Yeah. So Cruel Intentions not Cruel Inventions, was released on March, which actually surprises me because it seems like such a summer movie. But critics, uh felt kind of weird about it. Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote, you have the queasy sense that the whole thing is just an elaborate stunt, and in this case, an exploitative one, and the sentiment was echoed by Charles Taylor of Salon dot Com, who described the movie as quote the dirtiest minded American movie in recent memory. It wasn't wrong, I mean it was pretty scandalous, to be like, you know, yeah, I mean, naturally for this very reason, every one wanted to see it. It's sexy, but it's also taboo, perverse or reverent. It was given a hard R rating, which led to a rash of miners trying to sneak in the theaters to see it. Roger Kumble says that he remembers seeing signs and theaters saying no one under seventeen, especially for Cruel intentions. I should have taken a photo of it. He later left and given all the buzz, the movie was a financial success, taking in seventy six point three million dollars worldwide against the ten point five million dollar budget. That's pretty good. Well. Given the success of the movie, Roger Crumble was approached by Fox Television about the idea of developing a TV show based on the movie. They came up with a prequel called Manchester Prep, named after the private school characters attend. It was going to begin with Sebastian and Katherine meeting for the first time after their parents got married. A younger version of Sarah Michelle Geller's character Katherine was played by Amy Adams, first starring role for the six time Oscar nominated actress, which is a hell of a bow, hell of a debut. Kamba was given free rein to be about his boundary, pushing with this proposed show as the film version until they saw the dailies. Um, you know, the Columbine massacre had occurred just six weeks after Cruel Intentions came out, so having all of this violence directed at children in a classroom did not age well, and the network may have underestimated just how twisted these plots would be when compared to what was then standard primetime fair network Grass saw a rough cut of the third episode, in which a teenage girl achieves um satisfaction while riding a horse, speaking of the Rolling Stones. Yes, yes, Uh. That is when the network demanded an emergency reworking of the show and scard shopping executive. Horse isn't for killing, not for sections. What did you learn from never ending story? We blow up horses in this in this industry, we don't deflower them. Um, well, I keep that I don't know, uh, And that is when the media swooped in. Kumba later told The Telegraph Entertainment Tonight grabbed our b roll and didn't expose on us before we aired, called has TV gone too far? He said, from what I understood, Rupert Murdoch's wife or somebody like that saw the thing, and we were off the network the next day before we ever aired. So that is the leads us to the unfortunate second life of this. Uh. They tried to make lemonade out of their lemons and re cut the three episodes that they had filmed into a ninety minute movie and taking comparative freedom of the film versus network television sets of standards. They added a bunch of nude scenes and released it direct to video in two thousand, to all of the fanfare that you would expect from direct to video. Cruel Intentions adapt with added sex scenes. Uh, and you just gotta feel bad for Amy Adams, who thought she'd scored a lead role in a hotly anticipated primetime drama and wound up in a glorified skin flick heading straight to Uh straight to the bargain being of a Walmart. Walmart wouldn't carry that. Yeah, you're right straight to the ball if your gas station, I was to say, you're Texico KUMBOA letter told Telegraph. It was her first job out in Hollywood. I'm sure she's not pleased about that, but she's always nice when I run into her. But Amy Adams can take some small solace from the fact that she at least was not in Cruel Intentions three, which doesn't even have any of the same characters as the original movie. It focuses on Catherine's cousin. I tried to look up Cruel Attentions three to see if there was anything don't worry about it. People just list the cast and crew. There. No one has written a word one about this movie. It is amazing grubbed from the internet. And this was pretty much the end of it until when NBC announced that they were launching a new TV show that picked up with the original Cruel Intentions movie left off and would follow the adventures of a Net and Sebastian's child, which I'm a little confused by because Sebastian died as a high schooler, so maybe that means that he got a Net pregnant before he died. I make guess it must be what it means. Uh. I think they only had sex during the color blind sex scene. Has the phrase color blind sex scene ever been said before? I don't know. I'm glad that's recorded. Um. But this was big news because Sarah Michelle Geller agreed to come back to play Catherine, who is now in her mid to late thirties and vying for control of the business empire built by her late stepbrother's family, the Valmont's, and also, according to press briefings, battling for the soul of her teenage step nephew, which there's not a lot about the plot of the show out there, but I personally take to mean she was trying to have an affair with her step nephew, because they're not blood related. If she was to sleep with her stepbrother stepbrother son even more far removed, I don't know, just just spit ball in. Here're just developing. I'm not sure how far into production this got, but there were promo photos of Sarah Michelle gellar in an expensive looking bathtub, dressed all in black with her infamous coke filled crucifix. Uh. So there's a lot of excitement around that. But then the show started to disintegrate and cast members began to depart, and ultimately NBC declined to pick up the pilot for the summer seventeen season, and Geller later said that she was relieved since watering down the plot of Cruel Intentions for network TV, it seemed like kind of a shame, She told The New York Times. There was a whole crazy time. Nothing against NBC, but Cruel Intentions is straight streaming. On the first day, I was like, this isn't working. It's just not a network show. If it is a network show, it's not my Cruel Intentions. So I was actually grateful that it was not picked up. However, in the spring of two, it was announced that there was a new Cruel Intentions related SIA and development for Amazon's free streaming services IMDb TV, and it's set at an elite DC area college where, according to Deadline, after a brutal hazing incident threatens the entire Panhellenic system Greek life, they'll do whatever is necessary to preserve their power and reputations. I imagine this is referring to Catherine, and maybe Sebastian even seduced the daughter of the Vice President of the United States since national treasure. Yeah, good, good luck time. I don't even steal the Constitution. I don't know if they're bringing Sebastian back for this, if you like made it that he faked his own death, because yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I guess we'll see. Yeah. But probably the most successful Cruel Intentions related production has been the musical by Roger Kumble, Lindsay Rosen, and Jordan Ross. It had limited showings in l A and New York before beginning an off Broadway run at the Greenwich Village Venue Lapoissan Rouge in November. He's lived on the street from there, and it was supposed to be a ten week engagement, but the show is extended three times through April, and Sara Michelle Geller had a cute little cameo. She provided the voice for a prerecorded warning that played right before curtain went up, warning the audience to turn off their cell phone and not take pictures, and failure to do so, she said, would result in her quote, cyber shaming you into oblivion. I love her so much. It feels like he glossed over the fact. There's a jukebox musical focusing on the nineties, which meant you're getting stuff like No Doubt, Sunday Morning, bumping up against losing my religion, and sinking deep Blue something doing breakfast Tiffany's Next to No Scrubs set against the dramatic back dump of cruel intentions. I didn't mention it my friends. Why would they do that? She loved it. Oh my, because people are easily manipulated, my god, which is the theme of the film. Really yeah, I'm gonna say yeah, man, I love this movie. I touched on this at the top of the episode. But it's more than just taboo topics and a ludicrously attractive cast. It's a movie that really shows the dark side of human nature and also how it's possible to change. Director regro Humbel later said it's one thing to have juicy dialogue and mean teens, but it's also a tale of redemption. This guy, meaning Sebastian soul is saved. That's why I think it resonates that and the people are hot. I can't can't really underestimate that. I don't think anyone that we want to watch a movie of our souls being saved for ninety minutes? Do you higgle? Isn't the plot of the City of Angels in anyways, I think that's what this podcast is, just our souls being saved for ninety minutes. As we dive deep on Goonies, increase and Steely Tan records. Well, Jordan's I think you did a good enough job on this. You can put it anywhere. Shut it down, one long sensor beep until we roll credits. Thanks for listening, folks. It's just been too much information, way too much information this time around. I'm popping open my crucifix as we speak. Tell him who you are. I'm Alex Hegel. And I Have Jordan run Talk. Too Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth Applebaum on the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts and I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.