“I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script. “They only told me about it before we had to film the scene, and I was so angry,” Schneider said. Schneider, who died in 2011 at age 58 after a lengthy illness, spoke a number of times about the scene between her, then aged 19, and Marlon Brando, then 48, even saying in a 2007 Daily Mail interview that she “felt a little raped” by her co-star and director. A recently unearthed video interview (below) with Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci from 2013 has renewed interest, and outrage, over what happened to actress Maria Schneider on set during the infamous butter rape scene.īertolucci said that neither he nor Marlon Brando told Schneider of their plans to use the stick of butter during the simulated rape scene – a concept they came up with the morning of the shoot – because he wanted her to react “as a girl not as an actress.” He wanted her, he said, to feel “the rage and the humiliation.” “Last Tango in Paris” is making headlines again 44 years after the controversial film came out. It turns out that the people saying that what appeared to be an onscreen rape turned out to be quite right, and the director confirms it. Now a new interview has surfaced with the director and it’s causing quite a new stir about the treatment of women in Hollywood. The only novelty was the idea of the butter.”īernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” was very controversial when it came out and is considered a classic today, but many people have commented about the treatment of actress Maria Schneider to many eye rolls. That is false!”īertolucci added that “Maria knew everything because she had read the script, where it was all described. “Somebody thought, and thinks, that Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. “We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use. “I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter,” he noted. “Several years ago at the Cinematèque Francais someone asked me for details on the famous “butter scene. In Monday’s statement, issued in Italian, Bertolucci said: “I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about “Last Tango in Paris” around the world.” The outrage hit after a 2013 interview (below) surfaced. “Last Tango in Paris” director Bernardo Bertolucci has responded to the outrage that hit over the weekend about Marlon Brando and he conspiring against actress Maria Schneider in the controversial butter scene.