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Spoilers (2)
Morgan Fairchild, Beverly D'Angelo, Bette Midler, Tracey Ullman, Olivia Newton-John, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Alison Doody, Helen Slater, Demi Moore, Jennifer Grey, Jennifer Beals, Catherine O'Hara, Rosanna Arquette, Kate Capshaw, Cher, Ellen Barkin, Carrie Fisher, Linda Hamilton, Daryl Hannah, Barbara Hershey, Holly Hunter, Amy Irving, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Heather Locklear, Madonna, Lena Olin, Annette O'Toole, Michelle Pfeiffer, Miranda Richardson, Mary Steenburgen, Meryl Streep, Raquel Welch, Tuesday Weld, Debra Winger, Jane Seymour, Cybill Shepherd, Susan Sarandon, Kim Basinger, Kelly McGillis, Melanie Griffith, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis, Christine Ebersole, Mary Gross, Kay Lenz, Jessica Lange, Diane Keaton, Sissy Spacek, Sigourney Weaver, Candice Bergen, Goldie Hawn, Farrah Fawcett, Christine Baranski, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jodie Foster, Ally Sheedy, Annie Potts, Stockard Channing and Isabella Rossellini were all considered for the role of Alex Forrest.
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Glenn Close graduated from Rosemary Hall, an all-girls boarding school, the same year Michael Douglas graduated from the Choate School, an all-boys boarding school. The schools later combined to form Choate Rosemary Hall, which is co-ed.
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John Carpenter and Brian De Palma were offered the chance to direct but both backed out because they feared that the story was too similar to Play Misty for Me. De Palma also felt that Michael Douglas was not a good leading man. De Palma has since admitted he was wrong about Douglas. John Boorman was also offered the director's job but turned it down to do his personal wartime childhood memoir Hope and Glory.
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When Glenn Close finally secured the part of Alex Forrest, one of the first things she did was to take the script to two different psychiatrists to ask them: "Is this behavior possible and if it is, why?"
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When Glenn Close's agent first called to express her interest in playing Alex Forrest, he was told, "Please don't make her come in. She's completely wrong for the part." Director Adrian Lyne also thought that Glenn Close was "the last person on Earth" who should play Alex.
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The apartment used for the Gallaghers' apartment toward the beginning of the film, is the same apartment Adrian Lyne used in Nine 1/2 Weeks for Elizabeth's apartment.
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Glenn Close said that in her opinion, she had no trouble doing her nude scenes because she believed that they were not exploitive at all, and that they all served the story.
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During the re-shoot of the ending, Glenn Close suffered a concussion from one of the takes when her head smashed against a mirror. After being rushed to the hospital, she discovered, much to her horror, that she was actually a few weeks pregnant with her daughter; actress Annie Starke. To this day, Close said watching the ending makes her uncomfortable because of how much she unknowingly put her unborn daughter at risk from the physically demanding shoot.
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Glenn Close's terrifying performance as Alex Forrest was ranked #7 on AFI's 100 years...100 heroes and villains list.
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After poor audience reaction to the original ending, it was decided that the ending be re-shot. Glenn Close was opposed to redoing the ending, but eventually felt she owed it to everyone else to do it. (In the November 1996 edition of 'Movieline' magazine, Close said: "The original ending was a gorgeous piece of film noir. She kills herself, but makes sure that his prints are all over the knife, and he gets arrested. He knows he didn't do it, but he's going to jail anyway. But audiences wanted some kind of cathartic ending, so we went back months later and shot the ending that's in the movie now.")
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Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow and Anjelica Huston were originally considered for the role of Alex Forrest, but they never auditioned for the part. Barbara Hershey, Miranda Richardson and Debra Winger were the first choices to play Alex Forrest who auditioned for the part. Glenn Close was actually the fourth choice for the role of Alex Forrest.
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The two psychiatrists who reviewed the script at Glenn Close's request both came to the same conclusion: Alex Forrest's behavior was - in its own way - classic behavior. Their diagnosis was that Alex had been molested and sexually tortured for an extended period of time while she was a child. As such, she would naturally lash out at anyone who found her desirable.
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While talking with David Letterman on Late Show with David Letterman, Emma Thompson referred to auditioning for the role of Alex (it was in the context of a story she was telling). Letterman asked if she really did audition and she said 'yes'.
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Elisabeth Shue was originally considered for the role Alex Forrest but was forced to turn the role down, because she was signed to the Disney movie Adventures in Babysitting.
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Martin Sheen, John Heard, Steve Martin, John Travolta, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, Dan Aykroyd, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Costner, Chevy Chase, Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline, Tom Hanks, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Quaid, Bill Murray, James Belushi, Rick Moranis, Jon Voight, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were considered for the role of Dan Gallagher.
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According to Glenn Close, people still come up to her to tell her "thanks, you saved my marriage!"
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While on a break from filming the fight scene in Alex's apartment, Glenn Close took her dog, Gaby, on a walk around the complex where the production was shooting on-location. Close, still wearing the film's iconic white dress, covered in dirt and sweat, with her hair unkempt, began to notice three girls approach her with curiosity. Thinking that the girls presumed she had just been mugged, due to her appearance, Close was about to explain to the girls that she was only shooting a movie. But the girls were really just interested in meeting her dog.
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Producers Sherry Lansing and Stanley R. Jaffe had difficulty getting a studio to green light the film, and in finding a leading man. Michael Douglas was when writer James Dearden was expected to both write and direct. Douglas's experience with another less-experienced directed led him to ask for a different director, but Dearden was still kept on as writer--a rarity in the film business. Brian De Palma agreed to direct it, which got Paramount to green light the film, but he refused to stay on the project unless he could replace Michael Douglas. Lansing and Jaffee had a loyalty to Douglas, who was the first actor to express interest in the part, and who himself had experience as a producer. To keep Douglas on the project, they released De Palma. They had feared Paramount would the cancel the project, but instead they merely delayed the start of production which had, at the time of De Palma's departure, been 10 weeks away.
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To get the desired reaction shot from Ellen during the scene where she witnesses her parents have an intense argument, the director was behind the camera bullying her and threatening to take away the stuffed animal she was holding, which is why she begins crying and hugging it tighter. After the director yelled "cut" he immediately apologized to her and said he was only kidding.
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Spoilers
The original ending had Alex committing suicide while dressed in white, and Dan being arrested for her murder. It was changed when preview audiences felt that Alex was not brought to justice. This ending still appears in the Japanese release. The ending was re-shot in the worship room of the Unitarian church in Mt. Kisco, NY for three weeks in July, 1987.
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Alex's treatment of the pet rabbit has given rise to the commonly used expression "bunny boiler" in the UK - used to describe an obsessive woman with the potential to stalk casual acquaintances or one-night stands.
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