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Kyle MacLachlan has recalled shutting down an “absurd” request to perform a full-frontal nude scene in the surreal 1995 movie Showgirls.
In his new memoir Fiction Selves, the 67-year-old Twin Peaks actor recalled filming a pool scene where he was asked to walk past the camera fully nude.
“[Director Paul] Verhoeven and Jost Vacano, the director of photography, are in the pool in their tight European Speedos and seem pleased with how it’s going,” MacLachlan wrote of shooting the 1995 movie, according to Entertainment Weekly.
He added that the shoot entered “absurd territory a few times that night… including when Paul suggests that I first walk out onto the patio full frontal.”
“‘Kyle,’ he says, ‘when you walk across the pool deck and we shoot you here and you have a giant erection and you walk into the pool and we see this,’” MacLachlan recalled.
“‘Hold on a second,’ I say, snapping to attention. ‘Paul, I’m sorry, you can’t shoot me from the front,’” the actor continued.
“I stay congenial, despite the insane suggestion. Paul acts confused. ‘Yes, we see it from the front. We see you—’ ‘Ah no,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to do that.’”
“‘Listen… it’s not a problem if you can’t get an erection; we can matte one in,’ he says, not a trace of irony. ‘We can paint one any size you vant,’” wrote MacLachlan.
The actor said he pushed back on the request one final time, and the scene was eventually shot from behind.
“He shoots me from behind, thank the lord. I’ve seen it written that what you see in the movie here is a body double, but I assure you it’s not,” MacLachlan wrote. “That is my backside. And I make sure that’s all it is. Film is forever.”
Showgirls, which is known for its heavy nudity, bombed at the box office when it was released but has since witnessed a resurrection as a camp classic with a newer generation of fans. In it, MacLachlan played club boss Zack Carey.
It followed aspiring performer Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) who hitches a ride to Las Vegas with a dream of becoming a professional dancer.
MacLachlan told GQ in 2018 that when he read the script for the movie, he thought it was “sexy and edgy” but changed his mind after watching it.
“I watched the whole thing, I said, ‘I don’t know what to say about this movie. I don’t think I can talk about this movie,’” the Sex and the City actor told the publication. “And so I didn’t do any press, which didn’t make any friends in the publicity department there at that time, but it was just too difficult.”
He added that it was a “pretty big embarrassment” to his career at the time.
“And now, of course, the movie’s got this great life. [It] lives on in infamy I guess, and it’s sort of a crowd pleaser. But at the time, it was a pretty big embarrassment,” he said. “My career definitely took a hit on that one.”
