Some movies and some scenes seem to stay with an actor for a long, long time. It feels safe to say that the steamy sex scene between Neve Campbell and Denise Richards in Wild Things is one of those since many upon many men likely watched this film just for the chance to see what all the fuss was about. In terms of being erotic it was definitely that, but there’s also the idea of how it’s affected the two actresses since that scene in 1998. As you might guess it didn’t exactly ruin their careers since both women went on to star in various other films and built solid careers that might have faltered here and there but still allowed them to remain known. In Denise Richards’ case the only issue, as reported by Joelle Goldstein of People is that she’s not about to let her daughters watch the movie at this point.
In terms of how it affected Neve Campbell you can see by reading Laura Brodnik’s article in MSN.com that it doesn’t seemed to have slowed her down. If anything, Wild Things was just a drop in the bucket for Neve since the real challenge to her career was being typecast after her role in Scream. In many ways Neve is the type of actress that either gets nailed down for one particular role or she goes into what some might term as ‘hiding’ until a role comes along that she can fully embrace. For instance she was cast in House of Cards not that long ago on Netflix, and she was cast with Dwayne Johnson in the action flick Skyscraper. While the latter didn’t exactly bump up the career of anyone involved with the movie it was still a return for Neve that made sure that she could be seen as something other than an angst-ridden former victim that had a serious cast of PTSD and was trying to work past it. If anything, Neve has embraced roles that allow her to be feminine and still prove that her character is something of a badass that’s not to be messed with since in Skyscraper that’s exactly the case. In Wild Things, if anyone can think past this one steamy scene, it did turn out that she was the one behind the entire plot and was smarter than just about all of the people involved since she had every angle covered.
To be perfectly honest this movie didn’t seem to wreck either woman’s career in any way since despite the risque love scenes it still stands as one of the movies that people remember quite well and those that aren’t just driven by hormones can possibly recall that Kevin Bacon, Bill Murray, Robert Wagner, and Matt Dillon were integral parts of the plot that were interesting and engaging as well. While sex was a big part of the movie one still has to remember that it was essentially a revenge game in the long-run since Campbell’s character was looking to get back at the agent that had killed her friend and do away with anyone that could wreck the overall plan. In fact the only one that was safe from her scheming was Bill Murray’s character, and that was because he had little if any emotional investment in her plan, being that he was the lawyer and wanted to get paid after handling her financials.
At this point Wild Things is far in the rearview as far as many people are concerned that thinking it affects either woman in a negative light is kind of hard to imagine. Denise has forbidden her kids from watching it, but she doesn’t regret ever starring in the movie since she’s admitted to loving the script and the overall experience. Neve doesn’t seem to talk about it much as she’s got her career moving forward and has proven that she’s not a person that’s going to be satisfied being typecast any longer. So in all honesty it does seem as though the movie was just one more role in their lives and something that isn’t going to affect them in any real, lasting way. Of course it might make some people laugh to realize that there was a Wild Things 2 made, though the sequel, as one might guess, didn’t really hold up to the original, which to be honest has been all but forgotten save for the steamy, raciest scenes that many people can still recall.
In fact they made a few more movies along this line since sex, money, and deceit seem to sell, or so folks tend to think when they keep making these movies without cease. At this point the whole idea of Wild Things has boiled down to the sex scenes and left the rest of it as a byproduct. But for Neve and Denise life keeps going on, just as you might imagine.
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