Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! This week is dedicated to one of my favorite psychological thrillers, Se7en! Se7en was a truly shocking and suspenseful serial killer film filled with a hell of a cast and an ending that went down in history as one of the most jaw-dropping. So, don’t look in the box, always keep your switchblade handy, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• While preparing for his scene in the interrogation room, Leland Orser (Crazed Man In Massage Parlor) intentionally hyperventilated to make his body overly saturated with oxygen. He also deprived himself of sleep for a few days to make his character look more disoriented.
• The executives of New Line Cinema originally wanted to change the film’s dark ending. It was rewritten to where John Doe kidnapped Tracy and Somerset and Mills raced to save her life. Brad Pitt (David Mills) downright refused to make the film if the ending was changed.
• During the scene where Mills chased John Doe (Kevin Spacey) in the rain, Brad Pitt fell and his arm went clear through a car windshield. Pitt had to get surgery on his arm and the injury was worked into the script.

• Because he wanted his character to have poor fashion sense, Brad Pitt bought his own ties for the film.
• The film’s director, David Fincher told Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey, “This is not going to be the movie that you’re remembered for, but it may be a movie you’re incredibly proud of.”
• Denzel Washington was approached for the role of Mills. He felt the film was too dark and evil, so he turned it down. He later caught a screening of the film and ended up regretting his decision. Sylvester Stallone also turned the part down.

• The filmmakers decided that it should always be raining, not only to add a sense of dread, but also so they would never have to worry about bad weather.
• Makeup for the Sloth victim took over 14 hours.
• For the role of Victor, David Fincher wanted someone incredibly skinny, weighing around 90 pounds. When Michael Reid MacKay auditioned, he weighed 96 pounds. He ended up getting the part, and Fincher jokingly told him to lose more weight. To Fincher’s surprise, MacKay actually lost 6 pounds by the time filming started.

• David Fincher was worried that Morgan Freeman (William Somerset) would turn the film down. He believed Freeman would feel the film was too down market. Freeman ended up being the first one to eagerly join the cast.
• The film’s screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker had a difficult time getting a studio to buy the rights to his script due to the fact that he was a complete unknown in Hollywood. Supposedly, he resorted to collecting a list of agents that represented writers that work in crime and thriller genres, and he called each one until he got a positive response.
• Brad Pitt explained to David Fincher how he hated chase scenes where the chaser always knew where the person being chased is. Together, Pitt and Fincher worked out how Mills would be reacting during the chase scene, where he reluctantly went around corners, not knowing where John Doe was at any moment.

• All of John Doe’s books were real books written for the film. They took 2 months to complete and they supposedly cost $15,000.
• Because of the constant battles he had to face with the studio while working on Alien 3, David Fincher was determined not to let his vision be compromised this time. Just like Alien 3, the studio wanted to change this film’s ending, but this time, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman backed Fincher up and put their foot down.
• Brad Pitt stated that Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, Tracy is the only sunshine they have in the film.

• Gwyneth Paltrow was David Fincher’s first choice for the part of Tracy. She initially turned it down due to lack of interest, but because she was Brad Pitt’s girlfriend at the time, Fincher was able to ask him to convince her to meet with him.
• For the Gluttony crime scene, seven crates of cockroaches were brought to set and poured on Bob Mack (Gluttony Victim). A roach expert used Vaseline to keep the bugs on set. Mack’s ears and nose were plugged up to prevent the cockroaches from crawling in. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do to stop the roaches from crawling into Mack’s underwear.
• For the Gluttony scene, Bob Mack had to wear his prosthetics for 10 hours a day. David Fincher felt really bad that Mack had to wear all hot and heavy Gluttony prosthetics. To compensate for this, he made sure that Mack was well-endowed for his autopsy scene.

• Brad Pitt said that one of the reasons he took this role was because he wanted to “escape the cheese” after doing Legends Of The Fall.
• While filming the Greed scene, Gene Borkan (Eli Gould) was hog-tied while only wearing his underwear for most of the shoot. He had to be covered in two gallons of fake blood, and the blood was so thick that his knees became stuck to the floor.
• The Mills’ apartment was built on a shakable platform. The crew would sometimes trick visitors on set with “instant earthquakes.”

• Val Kilmer turned down the role of John Doe.
• Andrew Kevin Walker didn’t know all 7 of the deadly sins until he did the research for this script.
• R. Lee Ermy (Police Captain) originally auditioned for John Doe. David Fincher felt that Ermy’s take on the character was too cut and dry and there wasn’t much room for any gray area.

• Gene Hackman turned down the role of Somerset because there were too many night shoots. Robert Duvall also turned down the role.
• Christina Applegate turned down the role of Tracy.
• John Doe can be seen entering the diner where Tracy and Somerset were meeting at. That’s how he found out about Tracy’s baby.

• Andrew Kevin Walker cameos as the corpse at the first crime scene where Mills met Somerset.
• The producers wanted Kevin Spacey to receive top billing at the start of the film. However, Spacey insisted that they keep his name out of the beginning credits entirely to surprise the audience with the identity of the killer. He ended up being listed twice in the closing credits.
• It was rumored that the actors who played the SWAT officers really didn’t know that the Sloth victim, Victor was still alive, and that their shocked reactions to his coughing were genuine. This was later debunked as David Fincher confirmed that the scene was in the script.

• Another version of the ending had Somerset shooting John Doe, not Mills. Brad Pitt argued that Mills HAD to be the one to kill John Doe, and the scene was changed.
• Brad Pitt found it interesting that the sun never came out in the film until John Doe turned himself in. David Fincher stated that this wasn’t intentional, and he would have soaked the whole ending scene with rain machines if he could.
• A fake Tracy head was created for the box reveal, but it ended up not being shown in the film. The head was used about 16 years later in Gwyneth Paltrow’s autopsy scene in Contagion.

• One of the pitched ending changes included Somerset pulling his switchblade to stop Mills from shooting John Doe. Mills would turn and shoot Somerset in the shoulder and then kill John. The scene would then cut to 2 weeks later and Somerset is resting in the hospital. The Captain would visit him and tell him that Mills would be presented at court the next day. The Captain would also give Somerset a letter written by Mills that would say “You were right. You were right about everything.”
• The only on-screen murder that we see is Mills shooting John Doe. We only see the gruesome aftermaths of the other murders.
• Morgan Freeman isn’t completely satisfied with his reaction to seeing Tracy’s head in the box. He stated that he never saw a head in a box and he never saw a person’s reaction to seeing a head in a box, so he didn’t have much to go on.

• Morgan Freeman’s son, Alfonso Freeman cameos as a fingerprint technician.
• Charles S. Dutton cameos as the cop who keeps the press out of the Greed crime scene.