Patricia Arquette recently revealed how she confronted intrusive crew members during the filming of a ɴuᴅᴇ scene in David Lynch’s 1997 thriller, Lost Highway. In Lynch’s reality-bending narrative, Arquette portrays a mesmerizing femme fatale. She first appears as Renee Madison, the wife of Fred Madison (Bill Pullman), who is later murdered. After Fred mysteriously transforms into a mechanic named Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), Pete falls for Alice Wakefield (Arquette), who is also the mischievous mistress of gangster Mr. Eddy (Robert Loggia).

In an interview with Business Insider, Arquette recounted an incident where she had to ᴀssert her boundaries during the filming of Lost Highway. In Lynch’s surrealist neo-noir, Balthazar Getty’s Pete and Arquette’s Alice share a prolonged and ethereal “love sequence” as they tumble around naked in the dirt and dry wind outside a remote desert cabin far from the Hollywood Hills. Read what she had to say about filming the scene, below:

Oh, yeah. I remember there was a scene in ‘Lost Highway’ at the end where I’m naked, and Balthazar Getty and I are having this love scene outside this cabin, and then it’s going to burn down. And everyone kept saying, ‘OK, closed set. There’s going to be nudity,’ blah, blah, blah. ‘Walk away if we don’t need you in this part.’

They kept saying that, and there was still a lot of people on the set. And so I had a robe on, and I was like, ‘OK, guys, I just want to say something. I’m about to take this robe off, and when I take this robe off, if I turn around, and I see you there, and I know you don’t need to be here, I’m going to walk over and punch you in the ҒUCҜing face.’ [Laughs] And then 15 people ran away.

People are jerks. That’s all I could say.

What This Means For Lost Highway

From ’90s Icon To Industry Advocate

With nearly four decades of acting experience, 56-year-old Patricia Arquette has played a range of critically acclaimed roles across various genres. From portraying a Sєx worker in the Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance to serving as the enigmatic muse in Lost Highway and an infuriated wife in Ben Stillers’ Flirting with Disaster, she has left a significant mark on ’90s cinema. More recently, she has graced the small screens as Harmony Cobel, an enigmatic middle manager in Apple TV+’s psychological drama Severance.

While Arquette had to advocate for herself during Lost Highway‘s intimate scenes, she has since chosen to work with an intimacy coordinator for an upcoming project, explaining, “I just feel very vulnerable at this moment in my life.” Intimacy coordinators for movies and TV are trained to facilitate clear communication between performers and directors during scenes involving nudity or simulated Sєx. Their role has been a major topic of discussion in Hollywood, particularly after the lead actors of Sean Baker’s Best Picture-winning Anora opted not to have one on set despite the film’s comprehensive Sєx scenes.

Our Take On Patricia Arquette In Lost Highway

Intimacy Coordinators Matter

It’s great to hear that Arquette was able to advocate for herself on the set of Lost Highway. However, not all performers may feel comfortable speaking up. While intimacy coordinators are not yet a universal standard in Hollywood, these professionals can provide valuable support regardless of experience, with industry vets like Arquette opting for a coordinator. I think it’s crucial moving forward for sets to always have intimacy coordinators on-hand, so actors can feel more in control of their work and bodies throughout a vulnerable performance.

Source: Business Insider