Brooke Shields was simply 14 years previous when she starred within the extremely controversial film The Blue Lagoon.
Released in 1980, the movie follows two cousins, Emmeline and Richard, who’re shipwrecked on a tropical island as youngsters. Most of the story is targeted on their teenage years, which reveals the 2 characters fall in love and conceive a baby.
The Blue Lagoon is taken into account extremely scandalous because of its scenes of kid nudity. Brooke spends a considerable amount of the film with simply her hair protecting her breasts, and an grownup physique double was used when her character is uncovered.
Meanwhile, her costar Christopher Atkins didn’t have a physique double as he’d simply turned 18. And when the 2 actors reunited on Brooke’s podcast Now What? With Brooke Shields this week, they mirrored on their filming expertise and admitted that The Blue Lagoon would by no means be made immediately.
In addition to the nudity and controversial content material, Christopher recalled hurting actual animals in some scenes, in addition to the lax well being and security throughout the shoot.
The film was filmed on an island that was on a coral reef, which meant that the water would infect and ulcerate any minimize or wound that the forged and crew had.
And as a result of Brooke and Christopher wore so little clothes throughout filming and needed to climb bushes, they had been usually coated in accidents and bug bites. On the podcast, the celebs even stated {that a} member of the crew ended up with “a green hole in the back of his calf for three months” because of a wound an infection.
Brooke additionally ended up coming down with pneumonia throughout the shoot, however she nonetheless filmed her character’s birthing scene whereas sick.
All of this has left Brooke and Christopher completely satisfied that The Blue Lagoon was an extremely distinctive expertise that would by no means be replicated.
“Never again will a movie be made like that ever,” Brooke instructed her costar. “I mean, it wouldn’t be allowed.”
“Oh gosh no,” Christopher agreed. “Animals were hurt in the movie. We were spearing fish and all kinds of crazy things. Children are naked running down a beach, couldn’t do that now.”
In reality, Christopher stated the nudity was so “important” to the film’s director, Randal Kleiser, that as quickly as he and Brooke arrived on the island they had been instructed that they wanted to get an all-over tan.
“We were never eased into it,” Brooke recalled. “We got there and they instantly wanted us to be tanned. Remember, they set up those little thatched areas so that we could get tanned without tan lines.”
“I know, you were right next to me and that was even stranger because you were only 14 at the time,” Christopher replied.
They then clarified that there was a makeshift wall separating them as they lay in a hut that had no ceiling in order that they might lay bare in personal whereas nonetheless being uncovered to the solar’s rays.
And though Brooke and Christopher couldn’t see one another whereas sunbathing within the nude, Brooke was left feeling uncomfortable when she needed to movie with Christopher whereas he was uncovered.
“There were scenes where I was butt naked with you, if you remember, sliding down that slide and things like that,” Christopher said. “And that was a little bit awkward, but it surely was sort of humorous for me as a result of at this cut-off date I might simply do it. But your response was: ‘Ugh, oh god.’”
And Brooke admitted that she was pondering on the time: “Why do I have to look at this? I’d never seen one before, I’m not going to start now.”
Meanwhile, she needed to put on nipple covers earlier than having her lengthy hair caught to her physique to cover her chest. “We were wearing little strips of clothing, and my hair was taped to my body to cover my boobs, which were very minimal anyway,” she stated.
“Remember the bumpy pads?” Brooke went on. “They would stick these little flesh-colored things on my nipples because nipple, evidently, was where they drew the line in this movie.”
Brooke additionally recalled the film’s producers making an attempt to drive a real-life romance between her and Christopher, which she discovered weird as their age hole on the time “was a world of difference.”
“They wanted us so desperately to fall in love with each other,” she stated. “I did not react well being forced into feeling anything. I hadn’t even kissed anybody by that age.”
And Christopher then dropped the bombshell that even Brooke’s mother had tried to make a romance occur between them. Prior to filming, she invited him to dwell at their household residence for a couple of days in order that they might get to know one another earlier than working collectively — however Christopher revealed on the podcast that she additionally had ulterior motives.
“She basically wanted you out of horses and into boys,” he instructed Brooke, who was clearly shocked. “For the movie’s sake, she wanted us to be closer together and be near each other and be able to have that, whether it’s the brother and sister or whether it’s the love story.”
“I’m sure she was pushing for more of the boyfriend/ girlfriend relationship,” he added. “But at the same time, you’re 14 — I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here!”
Brooke admitted this was “a crazy position” for Christopher to have been put in, however she additionally stated they’d “amazing” chemistry on-camera that was most likely because of their “innocence.”
Discussing the extra harmful features of filming the film, Christopher stated: “There were long hours and there was a lot of physical stuff in that movie. Climbing those coconut trees, man, I was chafed up to no end. Running over the coral and stuff, all the bug bites and coral cuts and all the other crazy things. The fevers and everything we had, people don’t know any of that stuff — it’s not easy.”
“The bugs were crazy, the wild crabs were crazy, the wild horses were nuts, and then the infestation of rats,” Brooke agreed. “People don’t know that The Blue Lagoon was on an island and that was on a coral reef.”
“Any kind of cut you had and you went in the water, bits of the coral would get into the cut and it’d become completely infected and ulcerated,” she went on. “Ray had a green hole in the back of his calf for like three months.”
“We were like the Wild West but it just happened to be on the water. And I remember I got pneumonia,” Brooke continued. “In the birthing scene, when I’m supposed to be having the baby, I uncontrollably can’t breathe and have a coughing fit and everyone’s like what a great acting choice, I’m like: ‘I can’t breathe!’”
Brooke beforehand admitted that because of her younger age she had felt disconnected from the truth of what she was doing whereas capturing The Blue Lagoon.
Writing in her 2014 memoir There Was A Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me, the star defined: “It was a really interesting disconnect. You sort of desensitize yourself to anything sexual. In Blue Lagoon, I’m using a glue gun, taping my hair, anything I can, so my body doesn’t show I have boobs. And I didn’t realize I was doing it, because I was a kid. I was in a cocoon with my mom.”