Trivia / Basic Instinct

• Cast the Runner-Up: Jeanne Tripplehorn was originally considered for the role of Roxy. Paul Verhoeven thought she was wrong for the part, but was still interested in her and offered her the role of Dr. Beth Garner.
• The Cast Showoff: Michael Douglas (a former race-car driver) did most of his own stunt driving in the film.
• Darkhorse Casting: Michael Douglas felt that an A-list star should play opposite him, but after several big name actresses turned it down due to the nudity, the lesser-known Sharon Stone was cast.
• Deleted Scene: Subverted. The sex scene between Nick and Catherine was shot over five days so that it could be edited rather than cutting it completely should the MPAA object to its explicitness, which they inevitably did.
• Enforced Method Acting: During an interview with RuPaul and Michelle Visage, Cassandra Peterson reported that during the scene Bill Cable is stabbed with the ice pick, the ice pick was only supposed to hit the blood packs on Bill's chest, but Sharon Stone got so into the scene, that the ice pick ended up piercing through the blood packs and penetrated his chest underneath in multiple spots. No one was aware at the time, except for Bill, whose screams of pain were real. Bill was later rushed to the emergency room and treated for puncture wounds varying from half an inch to an inch deep. Thankfully, he didn't sustain any serious injuries, but the incident left him with permanent scars on his chest.
• Follow the Leader:
  • In the mid-nineties, every single thriller was Basic Instinct with some conceit.
  • And this film itself was following Fatal Attraction. Not only is Michael Douglas playing the male protagonist in both films (and many of the same actors were considered for both roles), some could see Catherine as an Expy of Alex (many of same actresses were considered for both roles) and both films' "good girls" are named Beth.
• Gay Panic: Michael Douglas refused to allow his character to be bisexual.
• Missing Trailer Scene: A clip that was cut from the first sex scene between Nick and Catherine, in which Catherine removes her dress, was featured in the trailer.
• Playing Against Type: In the Japanese dub, you don't expect someone like Sumi Shimamoto (in the NTV version, at least), a voice actress well known for voicing sweet, Yamato Nadeshiko-kind of girls or heroic girls like Nausicaä, Kyoko Otonashi, Kanata Izumi or Yuko Asou voicing someone like Catherine.
• Star-Making Role: For Sharon Stone. She had played some significant supporting characters in several succesful movies before this, but Basic Instinct made her a household name.
• Throw It In!:
  • Michael Douglas and Jeanne Tripplehorn were merely rehearsing the sex scene between their characters and didn't even know they were being filmed, but the director liked the footage so much that he put it into the film.
  • As well as the infamous pantyless shot. Paul Verhoeven recalled a woman doing this to him years before to embarrass him and decided to put something similar in the film—it was never in the original script.
• Underage Casting: According to the screenplay, Gus is 64 and talks about a murder case he remembered from 1955, which is about 35 years before the setting of the film. Gus is played by actor George Dzunda, who was only 46 during filming. This makes him and his partner Nick (Michael Douglas, 47) essentially the same age, instead of having an Old Cop, Young Cop dynamic.
• Wag the Director: Michael Douglas declined to go full frontal in the film, or to let his character be bisexual. He and Verhoeven had some disagreements over his direction of Sharon Stone, who was reportedly very nervous and insecure. In her first scenes, she was unable to replicate the performance that she had given during her audition. According to Verhoeven, she came very close to being replaced, but since he knew she had what the role required, he coached her intensively to get the required performance out of her. However, this caused Douglas to feel left out, as Verhoeven thought that Douglas, as an established Oscar-winning actor, no longer needed such close attention. It eventually led to a very heated argument in a trailer, the stress of which caused Verhoeven to burst a vein in his nose that caused profuse bleeding. When he went outside with blood-stained clothes, crew members believed that Douglas had physically hit him in the face.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Nancy Allen, Rosanna Arquette, Ellen Barkin, Drew Barrymore, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Beals, Annette Bening, Elizabeth Berkley, Helena Bonham Carter, Lara Flynn Boyle, Kim Cattrall, Stockard Channing, Jennifer Connelly, Courteney Cox, Geena Davis, Rebecca De Mornay, Laura Dern, Farrah Fawcett, Linda Fiorentino, Carrie Fisher, Bridget Fonda, Jodie Foster, Gina Gershon, Heather Graham, Jennifer Grey, Melanie Griffith, Linda Hamilton, Daryl Hannah, Mariel Hemingway, Helen Hunt, Anjelica Huston, Diane Keaton, Nicole Kidman, Diane Lane, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Courtney Love, Kelly Lynch, Andie MacDowell, Madonna ^note (who would coincidentally—or perhaps not—have a very similar role in the virtually identical film Body of Evidence the next year), Virginia Madsen, Bette Midler, Demi Moore, Catherine O'Hara, Tatum O'Neal, Annette O'Toole, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Annie Potts, Kelly Preston, Julia Roberts, Mimi Rogers, Isabella Rossellini, Rene Russo, Meg Ryan, Winona Ryder, Ally Sheedy, Cybill Shepherd, Elisabeth Shue, Sissy Spacek, Emma Thompson, Lea Thompson, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei, Kathleen Turner, Debra Winger and Robin Wright were all considered for the role of Catherine Trammell.
  • Richard Dean Anderson, Tom Berenger^note  He didn't like the script, Jeff Bridges, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, Michael J. Fox, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Don Johnson, Tom Hanks, John Heard, Ray Liotta, Christopher Lloyd, Jack Nicholson, Chuck Norris, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Dennis Quaid, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Wesley Snipes^note  He turned it down due to scheduling conflicts, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick Swayze, John Travolta, Denzel Washington^note  He turned it down, Peter Weller and Bruce Willis were considered for the role of Nick Curran.
  • Fiorentino was also offered the role of Dr. Beth Garner, but turned it down.
  • Brooke Shields was offered the role of Roxy. She turned it down because of the sexual content.
  • The role of Nick Curran was originally a lesbian cop with Kathleen Turner in mind for the role.
  • Paul Verhoeven wanted a lesbian sex scene between Catherine and Roxy, but Joe Eszterhas refused.
  • Miloš Forman was the first choice of Joe Eszterhas and Irwin Winkler to direct. He read the script while on vacation, and agreed to make the movie, but it turned out that Verhoeven had already been hired by then.
• Word of Saint Paul: On her installment of Inside the Actors Studio, Sharon Stone was asked by James Lipton what she believed happened to Nick after the film cut to credits. She responded by chuckling for a moment, then saying with a smile, "He can't live." (Catherine gives Nick a passing reference in Basic Instinct 2, and although she doesn't say she killed him, she doesn't say she didn't, either.)
• Working Title: Love Hurts. Interestingly, it shows up in the film as the title of one of Catherine's books.
• Write Who You Know:
  • Nick is based on an adrenaline-junkie cop Joe Eszterhas knew when he was a crime reporter in Cleveland.
  • Eszterhas based Catherine Tramell on a go go dancer he knew in Ohio. One night he picked the stranger up, and they went back to his hotel room to have some fun.
  She reached into her purse, and she pulled out a .22 and pointed it at me. She said, "Give me one reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger". I said, "I didn't do anything to hurt you. You wanted to come here, and as far as I know, you enjoyed what we just did". And she said, "But this is all guys have ever wanted to do with me, and I'm tired of it". We had a lengthy discussion before she put that gun down.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Joe Eszterhas wrote the entire script, with revisions, in ten days, and then sold it three days after completing it.

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