'CARRIE' EXCERPT IN CURRENT ISSUE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
The Sissy Spacek memoir My Extraordinary Ordinary Life will be published on May 1. The book was written by Spacek with Maryanne Vollers. The current issue of Entertainment Weekly (the summer movie preview double issue with Batman and Catwoman on the cover) includes an exclusive excerpt from the book in which Spacek tells the story of working on Brian De Palma's Carrie. There's not really anything new here that hasn't been told elsewhere (Spacek having to convince De Palma she was the right choice for Carrie; De Palma explaining to Spacek that discovering the blood in the shower should be like getting hit by a mack truck; husband Jack Fisk helping her grasp the right sense of shock by describing how he got run over by a car, etc.), but it is told in a clear and compelling narrative, filtered by Vollers. The excerpt concludes with this:
The script called for all the high school girls to be partially nude as they romped around the locker room at the end of gym class-- a fantasy scenario that only a man could dream up. Some of the girls were balking. That is, until we all watched the rushes from my shower scene.
I had it written in my contract that I would not appear fully nude on screen. But that was a trick of the editing room; the camera saw everything. Every time Brian shot another take of the shower scene, the clapper board was placed in front of me. And each time the board was pulled away, the camera was right where my contract said it couldn't be. Now, I'm not a shy person-- you can't be in this business!-- but by the time the rushes were over, I didn't know if I should laugh or crawl under my chair. I decided to laugh.
"Thanks a lot, Brian!" I said, as sarcastically as I could.
After that, Brian later told me, the female cast members stopped complaining about their topless locker scene.
Spacek is interviewed about the memoir at The Hook. The book is also likely to have stories about making De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise, as Spacek worked as a set designer on that film with Fisk, who was the production designer on Phantom, and the art director on Carrie.
Updated: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 12:07 AM CDT
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