Despite the provocative nature of the recently leaked promotional photos for "Inferno," which feature a scantily clad Lindsay Lohan as porn star Linda Lovelace, director Matthew Wilder told MTV News the subject matter behind the biopic is not at all sexy.
Wilder said the inspiration for that particular scene came from a very dark place (much like the tone of the entire film, which he explained earlier this year): the first time Lovelace's then-husband, Chuck Traynor, forced her into pornography.
"The [photos] represent the scene that you will see in the movie," Wilder said. "Her husband took her to a hotel room. [He] kind of ambushed her and didn't tell her what was going on."
Lovelace once wrote that her initiation into prostitution was a "gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor." Wilder said the photos, which were used in a promotional campaign to secure financing for the film at the Cannes Film Festival, are kind of "an abstract interpretation" of that incident.
Wilder said what surprised him most about the photos was Lohan's look. "It's interesting, because she looks really incredible," he said. "Linda Lovelace was not remotely this good-looking. It was really strange. This is really kind of like that movie thing, where everything is kicked up one or two degrees beyond reality."
Adding to Lohan's physicality are her acting chops, which Wilder said she can turn on and off in the blink of an eye. "There's a scene that we did, I don't know if we printed photos from it or not," Wilder explained. "But we put her in a chair, and she went into this total volcanic meltdown and then just like a second later snapped out of it and walked away, walked back and was talking normally to everyone else. ... I've never seen anybody who could turn it off like that and turn it on so intensely and then kind of walk away."
Moving forward, Wilder said production on "Inferno" will begin as soon as Lohan is ready after her release from the UCLA Medical Center rehab facility.
"There is talk about going in November," he said. "It's good. We've just got to wait until our star gets out of the [treatment facility], and then we'll be on our way."
He added that he hasn't spoken with Lohan yet, just her mother, Dina. "I don't know if she can talk," Wilder said. "It's one of those things where you can talk to her at certain times and certain times you can't, I don't really know."
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