Fatal Attraction Used a Real Bunny in That Infamous Boiling Scene

One of the most iconic—and disturbing—scenes in Glenn Close and Michael Douglas' 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction is when Anne Archer, who plays Douglas' wife in the movie, comes home and discovers her daughter's rabbit boiling in a pot of hot water. It's an absolutely shocking moment that highlights Alex's (Close) extreme obsession with Dan (Douglas) and her desire to win him back at any cost. (It also gave people fuel to incorrectly and offensively label women as "crazy" and "bunny boilers," but that's an essay for later.) The scene is so chilling that even Close admits it gave her pause. ("The only thing that bothered me [about the script] was the rabbit," she said during a Fatal Attraction reunion interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show.) If you haven't seen the movie in years, chances are you remember this scene vividly. We all do.

Of course, most of us found comfort in the fact that the bunny used in Fatal Attraction probably wasn't real—just a product of (deranged) movie magic. But this isn't true: According to Leading Lady, a biography about Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing by Hollywood Reporter editor Stephen Galloway, the bunny from that infamous scene was very much real. Don't call PETA just yet, though: The bunny was also very much dead before the Fatal Attraction crew dropped it in the pot.

Per an excerpt from the book obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the Fatal Attraction crew bought an IRL, dead bunny from a butcher shop in order to give the scene an extra oomph. (Again, a prosthetic bunny would have sufficed….)

"We tried to take its innards out to make it real," Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne said in Leading Lady. "But then it didn't have any heft. It was just like a little bit of skin. So we had to boil it with all of its innards, and the stench was beyond belief. That probably helped Anne because the smell was so bad."

What's arguably more horrifying than this (but not as surprising) is the sexism that happened during Close's casting process. In the book, Douglas says that Close's attractiveness was weighed before offering her the gig. Ick.

"There was a debate about her sexiness," Douglas said. "They gave me the most beautiful wife you could imagine, and the whole thing was 'How could you leave this gorgeous woman for Glenn Close?'" Seriously. If reading this quote made you sicker than learning about the rabbit, we understand. When, when, when will this Hollywood patriarchy end?

All of this tea makes me never want to watch Fatal Attraction again.

It is a biography written by The Hollywood Reporter's executive editor of features Stephen Galloway. Based on four years of research and hundreds of hours of interviews with her and some two hundred others.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qLjApqauql6YvK570q2mq7Ffm661rctmmK2sopawtbXOp2Suq5WZeqJ50Z6YpWWSqruvxYyipWasmJbBbrXNn5imp6WoeqO7yKWgp59dqLCmusQ%3D