DE PALMA FROM LAST JUNE: "SHE REFUSED TO PLAY CERTAIN SCENES THE WAY I ASKED HER"
With a new movie (Vicky Jewson's Close) world premiering on Netflix yesterday, Entertainment Weekly's Shirley Li talked to star Noomi Rapace about five of "her most badass roles" (Rapace plays a tough-as-nails bodyguard in the new film). One of the five movies in the article is Brian De Palma's Passion:In Brian De Palma’s hypnotic drama, Rapace plays a woman who—six-year-old spoiler alert!—murders her boss. Production, the actress admits, was just as dramatic in some ways. “He’s more old-school, so sometimes we clashed,” Rapace says of working with De Palma. “It was an interesting, turbulent journey.”
De Palma himself discusses his difficulties working with Rapace in the 2017 revised edition of Brian De Palma: entretiens avec Samuel Blumenfeld and Laurent Vachaud (published by Carlotta Films), and was asked about it last June by Le Point's Philippe Guedj. "Ha! My worst memory since Cliff Robertson in Obsession," De Palma said to Guedj. "She refused to play certain scenes the way I asked her. In general, when I deal with this kind of reluctance, I shoot two versions, one in my own way and another in the actor's way. But there she obstinately refused to follow my instructions. I had to constantly be extra cunning to achieve my goals. I will never work with her again and I pity the next director who will hire her."
Despite all of this, as can be seen from the photo above, De Palma and Rapace remained respectful enough of each other to promote Passion and hang out together at its Venice premiere in 2012.