.iWayneKnight appears in only one scene of 'Basic Instinct,' and not a single person in the last 30 years has forgotten it. He spoke with tarantallegra about his one, career-defining day on set
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo by TriStar Pictures Wayne Knight appears in only one scene of Basic Instinct, and not a single person in the last 30 years has forgotten it. You’re probably picturing it right now: Knight, sitting alongside four other men in a blue-tinted interrogation room, licking his upper lip and sweating profusely as Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs.
So I get cast in this part, and we go to shoot the infamous interrogation scene. It was a walk-and-talk through the police station into the interrogation room, and then the interrogation. That was all shot in one day. We shot my side of it and Sharon Stone’s side of it.Yeah. It was one day that, because of the trailer, became a massive thing in terms of me. My big mug and that look at her uncrossing her legs became part of the trailer.
But what people don’t understand is that the shot where I am looking at her and she uncrosses her legs and the big idea of whether or not she knew she was being shot — all of that is not to be settled by me because I had a matte box in my face. The camera was so close to me.Right. This is all in my head. I’m literally looking at a little X in a matte box and there’s a giant lens about two inches away from my nose, so I’m not seeing her.Yes.
When you’re in the hotel suite auditioning, the direction you’re getting is about licking your lips. How does Verhoeven direct you on the set? And it’s aided by the fact that the movie at large, and especially that scene, has taken on a longevity. People can still say “the Sharon Stone scene” or “the Basic Instinct scene.” It’s part of the lexicon.Yes. It’s been parodied and referenced so many times that you don’t have to know anything about Basic Instinct to be able to visualize it.
That’s a complicated thread of criticism surrounding this movie. I wonder if it wouldn’t have been quite so vocal had The Silence of the Lambs not just come out and faced similar criticism with Buffalo Bill.