Steven Soderbergh details Thandiwe Netwon’s ‘Magic Mike’ exit

Steven Soderbergh had to strip “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” after Thandiwe Newton’s exit.

Newton was slated to co-star in the film with Channing Tatum, who is also an executive producer of the franchise. However, Newton stepped away from the production in April 2022 to “deal with family matters”, as he originally announced. The Hollywood Reporter. Later, Salma Hayek Pinault got the role.

Director Soderbergh revealed that despite the many rumors surrounding the “real reason” for Newton’s departure, it is still a “private matter.”

“Nothing I’ve ever seen has been accurate, and there’s no upside to anyone involved in litigating or exploring this because I think it’s private,” Soderbergh said. Rolling stone. “Everything I saw in public was bad. I don’t think anyone would benefit from going through this in public. It becomes something you cannot control. Right now, if we want to keep it a secret, we can all control that, and I think it should be here for now.”

However, Newton’s exit meant that some “Last Dance” plot points had to be changed. For example, the character’s daughter was designed as a Newton lookalike; the updated script instead mentioned that Hayek had adopted Pinault.

“We had to develop that one aspect of her subtly, but I think it played to the dynamic with her daughter and resulted in one of my favorite lines in the whole movie — when she says, ‘Mom.’ I look at it now and go, this was always meant to be,” Soderbergh said. “We had to recalibrate. No question. We all spent hours in the rooms rebuilding, reimagining to make it unique. At a certain point, you have to surrender to what the movie gods want from you. You really do.”

And don’t expect Magic Mike to actually strip in this movie.

– There is no nudity in ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’. Not even a thong,” Soderbergh said of the Warner Bros. feature. “And yet our desire was to make a sexy film. What’s sexy is intimacy and honest feelings. Something that feels alive and electric and has the possibility of vulnerability. That can be sexy. You let someone into your heart and it’s scary. You could get hurt. The really radical thing to do now, it seems to me, instead of showing the beginning of a relationship, when the heat and light are there because of the attraction – that’s easy – is to show people who have been married for 20 years. for whom this is still true. Where you don’t even make a big deal out of it. They’ve been together for 20 years and they still love each other that way.”

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