Joshua Jackson on remaking Fatal Attraction

Joshua Jackson sees an opportunity in remaking a 1987 sexual thriller from a more interesting, modern lens.

Fatal Attraction runs for eight episodes. Picture: Monty Brinton/Paramount+

Joshua Jackson isn’t even trying to pretend Michael Douglas wasn’t perfect in Fatal Attraction.

“The fact is, an iconic movie star played this role iconically, and I can’t do anything about that. I’m stuck” he told news.com.au with a laugh. “If this was famously like a bad performance of his, maybe it would make life easier. But it’s not.”

Jackson revealed he hesitated to take the male lead role in the streaming series remake of Fatal Attraction, the 1987 sexual thriller starring Douglas and Glenn Close, but changed his mind when heard the pitch of the broader story.

Fatal Attraction famously originated the term “bunny boiler”, a derogatory put-down of a “crazy woman”, named after Close’s character, Alex Forest, who starts stalking her married lover after he tries to call off their affair.

The one-sided and one-dimensional gender dynamics of Adrian Lyne’s movie has been the subject of re-examination in the years since its release, and for Jackson, this updated version was an opportunity to explore some of those questions.

The series is a remake of the 1987 Michael Douglas and Glenn Close movie. Picture: Michael Moriatis/Paramount+

“When I went back and watched the movie, I realised there is a different version of [married man Dan] to be told. You can build upon that because 37 years have passed and in the time in between, we’ve come to a very different perspective of what this dynamic between a man and a woman are and means.”

The erotic series, streaming on Paramount+, will delve deeper into the mental health of both Dan and Alex (Lizzy Caplan), because it’s hard to look at risky behaviour without being honest about the context.

And, of course, the gender dynamics.

“There’s an obvious power discrepancy between these two people,” Jackson argued. “All of these things are part of what we wanted to take the eight hours we had instead of the two hours they had, and use that time to really dive into all of those things.

“From a modern perspective, I don’t want to re-litigate the movie because the movie is what it is. It’s of its own time but when you look at it from a modern perspective, it’s untenable, right?

“‘He’s the victim of her craziness’, which is basically what it was. Like, amazing, what a time to be a man. But that’s not interesting from a character standpoint and it’s not interesting from a modern standpoint.

“So we use the opportunity to really get into Alex Forest, and give a better sense of who she is and why she is and where she came from.”

Fatal Attraction is streaming now on Paramount+. Picture: Michael Moriatis/Paramount+

In Lyne’s film, the ultimately destructive condemnation of Alex as an unhinged, rejected woman also led to Douglas’ character, Dan, escaping accountability.

Jackson is right saying that the previous iteration of Dan was seen as a victim, but the actor is more interested in who Dan really is, what makes him do what he did and what is his culpability.

“Here is this guy who has spent his entire life kind of living out the image of himself rather than being the thing itself. He’s the image of a good father, he’s the image of a good husband, and he’s the image of an upstanding man in the community. Everybody loves him.

“But as soon as it gets poked a little bit, he starts to collapse. His ego just folds in on itself and he reaches out for something – in this case, someone who will flatter him.

“He’s feeling weak and instead of being able to tell the people who are closest to him that he feels weak, he’ll reach out for someone to affirm him in all the ways he wants to be seen.

“So, who is this guy? The truth is, he’s a lot of guys. That’s a lot of humans.”

With this deeper focus on Dan, Fatal Attraction actually rebalances the skewered gender mix of the original film. It holds him accountable, which is a not insignificant comment on modern masculinity.

“He does a big bad thing, but he could stop it right there if he could take responsibility for that, but he can’t. And so he makes it a little bit worse and a little bit worse and a little bit worse. His pride won’t let him, he can’t wrap his arms around it.

“Eventually, the whole thing collapses because he can’t ever stop pretending he is this image of a man.”

Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan at the premiere of Fatal Attraction. Picture: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

But if you think all this serious stuff strips the sexual chemistry out of Fatal Attraction, you’d be wrong.

The series is hot and heavy, and it doesn’t hold back from intimate sex scenes that are passionate, sensual and hungry. It effectively sells that these two people became so wrapped up in the thrall of each other, that it turned into the mess it did.

Sex on screen has become a talking point in Hollywood as the number of intimate scenes dwindled especially on the big screen. When Fatal Attraction the movie was released in the late 1980s, it was part of a wave sexual thrillers that dominated cinema culture.

Lyne along was responsible for some of the most iconic erotic thrillers, including Indecent Proposal and 9½ Weeks, while the likes of Body Heat, Blue Velvet and Basic Instinct still endure in the popular consciousness.

Jackson said it’s undeniably true that the movie industry has gone through a transition and sexless blockbusters rule the marquees.

“We don’t get these kinds of movies [anymore], right? They don’t get made for cinema, they get made for television, which is why we’re doing a bunch of episodes,” he said.

“I don’t know how Australia is doing but in North America, we’ve taken some steps forwards and then massive steps back. We’re in a very prudish moment in culture right now. We’ve gone so backwards in our level of comfort with ourselves. It’s odd.

“I’m not quite sure why that is but the cultural right is ascendant in North America and it has led to this very prudish, non-realistic view of sexuality.”

Fatal Attraction is streaming now on Paramount+

Originally published as Joshua Jackson on remaking Fatal Attraction