50 Fun Facts About Fatal Attraction

Who directed Fatal Attraction (1987)?

He was nominated for the Best Director Oscar and later made Indecent Proposal and Unfaithful.

Who plays Alex Forrest, the spurned lover in Fatal Attraction?

Glenn Close was not the producers' first choice, so she came to her audition with her long hair left wild and won them over.

Who plays Dan Gallagher, the cheating attorney in Fatal Attraction?

Michael Douglas backed the reshot ending at once, while his two co-stars objected to it.

Which actress plays Beth Gallagher, the wife in Fatal Attraction?

Anne Archer was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA as Beth, yet objected when the studio scrapped the original ending.

Which British short film by James Dearden was expanded into Fatal Attraction?

Diversion was Dearden's own short, and the feature script built on it was turned down by several major studios, including the one that later made it.

What is Alex Forrest's job in Fatal Attraction?

Associate editor for a client of Dan's firm: the pair meet at a party, then at a weekend business meeting while his family is away.

Which opera does Alex Forrest invite Dan to see in Fatal Attraction?

Madame Butterfly is by Puccini, and the film's original ending was staged as a re-enactment of the opera's finale.

What does Alex Forrest do to the Gallagher family's pet rabbit in Fatal Attraction?

Boils it on their stove: the family comes home to find the pot simmering, a scene that gave English the phrase 'bunny boiler'.

How does Alex Forrest get to meet Beth in Fatal Attraction?

Posing as a buyer for their apartment gets Alex past Dan, who had changed the family's phone number to shut her out.

Where does Alex Forrest take Ellen after collecting her from school in Fatal Attraction?

An amusement park: Alex returns Ellen unharmed, but Beth crashes her car while searching for her and ends up in hospital.

What does Alex Forrest pour on Dan's car in Fatal Attraction?

Acid ruins the car, and when Dan goes to the police they say they cannot act against Alex without probable cause.

Who kills Alex Forrest in the reshot ending of Fatal Attraction?

Beth, with a gun: Dan seems to have drowned Alex in the bath, but she rears up from the water and Beth shoots her.

How does Alex Forrest die in Fatal Attraction's original ending?

She slashed her own throat with a knife Dan had handled, so police arrested him until Beth found a tape of Alex threatening suicide.

By its producers' account, why was the ending of Fatal Attraction reshot?

Test audiences hated Alex triumphing, so writer James Dearden reluctantly wrote a new finale, persuaded it would make the film a bigger hit.

Which of her Big Chill co-stars talked Fatal Attraction's lead actress into filming the new ending?

William Hurt, by her account, told her she had made her point and should buck up and do it, after she had resisted the reshoot for weeks.

Which director turned down Fatal Attraction because it was too similar to Play Misty for Me?

John Carpenter dismissed the script as simply Play Misty for Me, although producer Sherry Lansing recalled begging him to direct it.

Which comedian passed on playing Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction because of the rabbit scene?

Tracey Ullman was sent the script, though never formally offered the part, and decided the scene went too far.

Which French actress did Fatal Attraction's director first have in mind for Alex Forrest?

Isabelle Adjani was his first idea, but she reportedly spoke too little English, and he chose to cast against type instead.

What injury put Fatal Attraction's lead actress in hospital while filming the bathroom finale?

A concussion sent her to hospital during the violent bathroom struggle, part of a reshot ending she had fought against filming at all.

Made for about $14 million, Fatal Attraction took roughly how much at cinemas worldwide?

$320 million, by the lowest published tally, was more than twenty times the budget, yet the film had opened to only $7.6 million in its first US weekend.

Which film beat Fatal Attraction to finish as 1987's top-grossing movie in the United States?

Three Men and a Baby topped the US chart, but overseas takings made Fatal Attraction the year's biggest film worldwide.

Fatal Attraction went home empty-handed from six Oscar nominations; which film beat it to Best Picture?

The Last Emperor won all nine of its nominations that night, beating Fatal Attraction in four of its six categories, Best Picture and Best Director among them.

Fatal Attraction's only BAFTA win went to Steven Spielberg's regular collaborator Michael Kahn in which category?

Best Editing went to Michael Kahn and Peter E. Berger; at the Oscars a year earlier Kahn had competed against himself, nominated for this film and for Empire of the Sun, and lost.

Fatal Attraction is credited with triggering what late-1980s film trend?

The erotic thriller boom is credited to the film, a hit big enough to put its two stars on the cover of Time magazine.

Which future sitcom star plays the Gallaghers' babysitter in Fatal Attraction?

Jane Krakowski's Christine arrives in the opening minutes to mind Ellen, which frees her parents to go to the book party where Dan first meets Alex.

Psychiatrists have used Alex Forrest as an illustration of which condition?

Borderline personality disorder fits her fear of abandonment, rage and self-harm, though people with it far more often harm themselves than others.

Only two female villains outrank Alex Forrest, seventh of the AFI's 50 screen villains: the Wicked Witch of the West and who?

Nurse Ratched ranks fifth, one place behind the Wicked Witch, though Fatal Attraction's own writer insists Alex is emphatically not a monster.

Whose 2013 murder trial was widely dubbed a real-life Fatal Attraction?

Jodi Arias was convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander; prosecutors cast her as a jealous lover who attacked him after he tried to end the relationship.

At which West End theatre did the 2014 stage version of Fatal Attraction open?

Theatre Royal Haymarket staged it with the film's own screenwriter adapting, and he rewrote Alex as a tragic figure, not a monster.

Who directed the 2014 West End stage version of Fatal Attraction?

Trevor Nunn directed Natascha McElhone, who agreed to play Alex only on the understanding that the character would not be demonised.

Who plays Alex Forrest in the 2023 streaming series of Fatal Attraction?

Lizzy Caplan starred opposite Joshua Jackson's Dan in a retelling pitched as a modern look at personality disorders and coercive control.

In the 2023 Fatal Attraction series, what is Dan Gallagher's job?

Deputy district attorney in Los Angeles: the series moves the story west, and opens with Dan seeking parole 15 years after his conviction for Alex's murder.

What happened to the 2023 Fatal Attraction series after its first season?

It was cancelled five months after its finale, in the same announcement that ended Kiefer Sutherland's spy drama Rabbit Hole.

Fatal Attraction was the first film directly distributed by a US company in which country, in 1988?

South Korea: local film-makers protested, with snakes in cinemas among their tactics, fearing direct distribution would send ticket revenue straight to Hollywood.

Which country's cinemas were allowed to screen Fatal Attraction with its original ending?

Japan's distributors responded well to the original ending, so both cuts were tried on audiences there, and the original later played in Tokyo cinemas.

Which studio released Fatal Attraction in September 1987?

Paramount opened it small and let word of mouth build: its weekend takings grew in the following weeks instead of dropping.

Which Star Trek II director polished Fatal Attraction's script and proposed a new ending?

Nicholas Meyer argued the first draft's ending was too harsh and polished the script, but a Writers Guild arbitration denied him a credit.

To which commuter town do the Gallaghers move during Fatal Attraction?

Bedford, in Westchester County, is where Alex follows Dan home and is sickened by the sight of the happy family through a window.

What does Alex Forrest do when Dan first tries to end their affair in Fatal Attraction?

Cuts her wrists, which forces Dan to stay the night while she recovers before he goes back to his family.

Which Sex and the City star played Beth in the 2014 West End stage version of Fatal Attraction?

Kristin Davis called the part a dream come true: she had grown up expecting a career in the theatre, not the television fame that came with playing Charlotte.

Which feminist author criticized Fatal Attraction in her book Backlash for making Alex wholly negative?

Susan Faludi's Backlash treated its vengeful single career woman as the peak of Hollywood's anti-feminist turn, a charge the film's producer and writer both rejected.

Which dance film had Fatal Attraction's director made earlier in the 1980s?

Flashdance had made him hot property, and his steamy 9½ Weeks had just beaten box-office expectations when the studio hired him.

Fatal Attraction's leading man won the Best Actor Oscar that same year for which other film?

Wall Street's Gordon Gekko won him the Oscar on a night when Fatal Attraction itself lost all six of its nominations.

Which 1960s sitcom star plays Dan's boss, Arthur, in Fatal Attraction?

Fred Gwynne, television's Herman Munster, was typecast by the monster role when the show ended, and this sober law-firm boss came two decades later.

Which actress was the producers' first choice to play Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction but was unavailable?

Barbara Hershey was producer Sherry Lansing's first choice, and with her unavailable a long search followed before the part was cast.

What did Fatal Attraction's lead actress learn in hospital after being hurt filming the finale?

She was pregnant with her daughter Annie Starke, and was eight months along when she attended the Oscars as a Best Actress nominee.

How did the actress playing Beth react to news that Fatal Attraction's ending was being changed?

She burst into tears, by her own account, and producer Sherry Lansing held and comforted her.

Which singer beat Fatal Attraction's lead actress to the Best Actress Oscar?

Cher won for Moonstruck, whose Olympia Dukakis also beat Fatal Attraction's nominee for Best Supporting Actress.

In a famous line from Fatal Attraction, Alex Forrest tells Dan she is 'not gonna be' what?

Ignored: Alex says it after Dan stops taking her calls and changes his phone number, and the film's producer called the line the essence of the story.

Which network developed a Fatal Attraction series with two Mad Men writers, then dropped it in 2017?

Fox put the reboot into development in 2015 and got as far as active casting before passing; a streaming version followed in 2023.