Antonio Banderas and Rebecca Romijn in Femme Fatale HFP/Lagardere Photo Archive

Critic Charles Taylor wrote of Femme Fatale: "Watching Femme Fatale is like being given a plush, comfy seat at the swankiest peep show in town. It's a supremely relaxing turn-on." How would you respond to a comment like that?
Thank you. Yes, it is a kind of erotic fantasy. So, I have made many movies where I have photographed beautiful women and much like a painter who likes to paint them, your eye is drawn to them and there it becomes part of your story.

Do you have a favorite sex scene in a movie?
Favorite sex scene in a movie? That's a good question. I think sex scenes are extremely difficult to do. I don't think I have ever really done a straightforward love scene. Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious. Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo.

Do you have a favorite sex scene from one of your movies? Is there one that you are particularly proud of and that worked very well for the entire project?
So much of shooting sex scenes in movies you a see are naked people sort of humping each other on a bed, shot in the most unflattering way just because they happen to be naked and mimicking making love. They don't really dramatize their particular sexual attraction to each other. And it's very difficult. You have to find a way, a visual way to approach scenes like that. And I am trying to think of some good examples... I think in Femme Fatale the two girls are very sexy with each other. I had never shot a scene like that before.

The movie opens with that scene but was that the first thing you shot? At what point in the filming process are the actors and actresses are comfortable enough to do a scene like that?
[The girls in Femme Fatale] knew each other very well. They had worked together. And Rebecca and I went through a whole bunch of drop-dead beautiful models, trying to find someone to play this scene with her. It was like the reverse of a casting couch scene where you're asking your leading lady to go through this make-out scene and you look over to her and say: "Well, what do you think?" And we went through one drop-dead gorgeous girl after another and finally Rebecca said: "Look, I think I have an idea for a girl for the scene," and it was a girl she may have worked with before who was just incredibly sexy and they were incredibly sexy together. I am trying to think of movies with really good... there must be some classics that spring to mind.

Maybe Blowup or Last Tango in Paris?
Blowup? Yeah, yeah. Incrediblely sexy. Who was it? Veruschka [von Lehndorff]? Incredibly stunning and beautiful.