‘Full Metal Jacket’ Star Describes The Deleted Scene That Should’ve Been In the Movie

Thanks to his recent roles in The Dark Knight Rises and the Netflix series Stranger Things, Matthew Modine is having a resurgence in his career. Younger audiences might not know who the actor is, but older generations will always remember him for his roles in Vision Quest, Birdy, and, often regarded one of the best films about the Vietnam War, Full Metal Jacket. Despite the film being considered one of director Stanley Kubrick‘s masterpieces, Modine would beg to differ, as he recently revealed to Yahoo! Movies the one scene he wished wasn’t cut from the finished product.

Although Kubrick gained a reputation for being a perfectionist who was somewhat reclusive, with horror stories emerging from shooting The Shining about the torture Shelly Duvall underwent, Modine recalled a suggestion he made to the director being worked into the script.

The actor claims that, midway through the shoot, the director explained to him, “‘I’m really excited about the way the film is cutting together. We have everything!’ I told him, ‘Yeah, everything but sex. We don’t have a sex scene in the movie.’” Shortly after this exchange, the film paused shooting for the Christmas break, and when filming resumed, Kubrick approached him again, with the actor claiming, “He said, ‘Here’s the sex scene.’ I was like, ‘Which sex scene?’ And he said, ‘What do you mean which sex scene? It was your idea!’”

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The scene was set to take place after Modine’s character interacted with a prostitute on the street, and although the scene allowed Modine’s character to show more of his true nature, it never escalated past a sidewalk conversation. The new scene followed this interaction, with Modine’s character following the prostitute to her room, with Modine noting, “Stanley said, ‘You’ll be in bed with her, and she’ll say she wants more boom-boom, and you’ll say something from an old movie.’”

The “something from an old movie” was going to be a line from 1942’s Now, Voyager, which Modine modified to fit the mood, explaining, “I lit two cigarettes just like Paul Henreid [in Now, Voyager] and said, ‘We have the moon, let’s not ask for the stars.’ I reversed it because we had landed on the moon. It was all filmed in one flowing, elegant camera move. That’s the one scene I wish was in the movie.”

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Modine’s wish might never be granted, Full Metal Jacket has still stood the test of time for its depiction of one of the worst wars in history.