“Bound” stars drank tequila before filming lesbian love scenes

What’s the secret Bounds hot, same-sex love scenes? Tequila and truffles, as it turns out.

Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly have joined The Hollywood Reporter‘S It happened in Hollywood Podcast for an episode about the making of 1996’s noir – the lurid lesbian thriller that served as the debut for Lilly and Lana Wachowski three years earlier The Matrix made the director siblings household names.

The frank depictions of gay sex were considered risky at the time. “Gina knew immediately that she wanted to do it,” says Tilly, who plays Violet, the girlfriend of a gangster (Joey Pantoliano) who falls in love with Gershon’s Corky, an ex-convict. “But I was scared. The script was one of the best you’ve ever read. But then you think, two first-time directors, Dino De Laurentiis as producer – we could easily get into a kind of Roger Corman arena. I was a little nervous.”

But Tilly didn’t have to worry. The Wachowskis had an innate talent for creating technically amazing films even with little money.

“Sometimes I get this tingling feeling when I’m around really great directors,” Gershon says of her first meeting with the Wachowskis, noting that she asked them specific questions about how they planned to bring their own script to life. “Their answers were so smart and visionary and so different. I thought they were incredibly gifted and like secret geniuses.”

Gershon had just Showgirlsthe hotly debated successor of Basic instinct Director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas.

But filming didn’t go quite as Gershon had imagined—she compares the set to a “Britney Spears concert”—and she warned her management that the film could go wrong (which, of course, did: the film initially became a laughing stock before gaining cult status among those who appreciated its over-the-top camp theatrics).

Gershon recalls: “I said, ‘Listen, (Showgirls) will not be what you think. You have to find me a film now where they show a real actress.’ And so I wanted to take part Bound simply because I enjoyed writing so much.”

Despite the protests of her agents, who thought the lesbian content would ruin her career, she signed the contract for the role of Violet.

The pair had electrifying chemistry on screen – and broke the ice with some alcohol.

“The day of the first kissing scene, Gina came to my trailer with a bottle of tequila. I said, ‘Tequila – what a good idea!'” Tilly recalls.

“And chocolates!” adds Gershon, who is still close to Tilly after almost 30 years. “You always forget that I brought you chocolates too. I was the perfect date.”

Bound was recently added to the Criterion Collection with a 4K restoration of the unrated international version supervised by cinematographer Bill Pope.

Learn more about the production in this latest edition of It happened in Hollywood.