Sandra Hüller Says Scrapped Lawyer Sex Scene in ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Was ‘So ’80s’ and ‘Dull’

Samantha Bergeson
·3 min read
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Sandra Hüller says a sex scene involving her character Sandra and her lawyer Vincent almost made it into “Anatomy of a Fall. The Oscar-nominated actress told Variety that the courtroom drama, which is up for Best Picture, originally had a sex scene involving her character Sandra and her defense lawyer (Swann Arlaud), who has gone viral by way of the “Fleabag” “hot priest” on the internet.

While Hüller credited writer/director Justine Triet’s film for having a “perfect script,” she and a producer found one planned scene to be particularly “dull”; the sequence ultimately was scrapped. “There was an actual love scene in the film, we could see their affair,” Hüller said of her widow character Sandra and her attorney. Hüller added that producer Marie-Ange Luciani disagreed with the scene, and it was not included in the film.

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“She [Luciani] said, ‘Please, don’t do it, it’s so ’80s,’ which is very true,” Hüller said. “Why do people always have to prove they love each other by going to bed with each other? It’s so dull!”

In IndieWire’s Cannes review of the film, the critic compared “Anatomy of a Fall” to “Basic Instinct” if it took place in the courtroom.

Hüller later told IndieWire’s Anne Thompson that her “Anatomy of a Fall” role was written for her specifically by writer/director Triet, who is nominated for Best Director at the 2024 Oscars. “I immediately said, ‘yes,’ because I wanted to be that woman, and to explore this topic, because this relationship that they have, maybe all of us know a little bit of that. Who has the power, and who gets which space, who gets which time? Who was excusing himself all the time for not working and blaming the other person to make him sit at home? We all know that,” Hüller said, adding that she “desperately wanted to know at some point” whether character Sandra was a murderer or not.

“The only thing [writer/director Triet] said to me is that she wants me to play her like she’s innocent, which made me insecure on the spot, because I thought, ‘what does it mean? She is, but I have to pretend she’s not? What’s that message? What am I going to do with it?'” Hüller told indieWire in Telluride. “And then she felt that I was confused.”

She continued, “And then she said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not what I mean.’ I realized that it’s not about this riddle if she’s done it or not. It’s more about the things that we think about her, every little detail that we know about it, how we judge her in every aspect of her life, like the relationship with her son, with her husband, with her work, her ability to not feel guilty at any moment for anything she’s done in her life. She’s taking complete responsibility for everything she’s doing. It is a really mature thing. I admire that very much.”

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