The Scrapped Indiana Jones Scene That Had Kate Capshaw In A Full Blown Panic Attack
Let's get one thing straight here: snakes are awesome.
Yes, some are venomous and some could crush the life out of you, but these are some of the coolest reptiles on the planet. And if you're in a controlled situation with someone who knows how to handle them, it is a uniquely ecstatic feeling to let these suckers slither all over you. Okay, I don't need to get up close with a cobra or a black mamba, but if they're behind protective glass I could watch them do their rat-eating thing all day. They're marvelous, misunderstood creatures.
Not everyone agrees. I'd venture to say the vast majority of humanity disagrees with me. Fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones absolutely disagrees with me (though Harrison Ford does not). When it comes to storytelling, I get it. If you're throwing your hero into situations where asps are common, there's no better way to get your audience squirming than to plop him into a sealed-from-the-outside vault loaded with the fanged nasties that did in Cleopatra.
No matter how much I love snakes, I am of mostly sound mind and body, and wouldn't want to contend with this likely lethal predicament either. But on the set of a mega-budget flick directed by the most famous filmmaker on the planet? It's playtime.
Alas, while making the controversial "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," Kate Capshaw didn't feel that way.
You could either have Capshaw or snakes, and Spielberg chose wisely
According to a pair of interviews in "The Making of the Temple of Doom," Capshaw suffers from a severe case of ophidiophobia. So when it came time to shoot a scene where her showgirl character Willie finds a snake coiling around her, she balked. Producer Frank Marshall, eager to get the shot off with a minimum of fuss, attempted to assuage Capshaw's fears by introducing her to the reptile with whom she'd be sharing a very brief scene. It didn't go well. Per Capshaw:
"I went over and looked at it, and looking at it, I get tears in my eyes and I'm having a hard time breathing and I'm looking... I can almost work myself up right now. And I went over and I put my hand on the snake, and I lost it."
Spielberg noticed. As he says in the documentary:
"She was shaking and she was all white, and you could see right through her makeup. She had lost all of her color. And I said, 'I'm not gonna put you through this. Let's cut it out.' And I cut the whole scene out of the movie. I think she probably years and years later, married me for that!"
A union of the anti-snake! They're still together 32 years later, so congratulations! Still, I think Capshaw, and all snake-phobes, could learn to love these reptiles if placed in the right situation. Spiders? Not so much. And those creepy crawlies in the chamber leading to the temple? Kill them with fire.