David Fincher reveals secrets from Se7en, from casting near-misses to the (false) rumour about that head

EXCLUSIVE: Speaking to ‘The Independent’, the filmmaker also revealed the hilariously blunt response he received from Gene Hackman after he offered the veteran actor a part in the film

David Fincher has revealed secrets from behind the scenes of his 1995 thriller Se7en as it’s re-released in an eye-popping new remastered edition.

Speaking to The Independent, the filmmaker discussed some of the actors he initially hoped to cast in the film, poured cold water on a long-standing rumour about its shocking ending, and his memories of how Denzel Washington was initially approached to star in the movie.

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt ultimately led the film as Detectives Somerset and Mills, who are tasked with investigating a serial killer modelling his crimes after the seven deadly sins. Gwyneth Paltrow was cast as Mills’s doomed wife Tracy, while Kevin Spacey starred as the killer John Doe. All four parties collide in the film’s famed climax, which has birthed a particular urban legend linking Se7en with Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic thriller Contagion.

*Spoiler warning* Before you read any further, be aware that this article discusses the final scenes of Se7en and a specific plot point in Contagion.

In the famed scene, Somerset and Mills are confronted with a cardboard box. While we never see the contents of the box, we soon learn that it contains Tracy’s severed head. Despite the fact that the head is never actually shown on-screen, internet sleuths have long claimed that a dummy of Paltrow’s head was still made during production, and that years later it was re-used for a scene in Contagion in which Paltrow’s deceased character – whose illness kicks off a pandemic – has her head cut open and examined by a medical examiner.

“That is entirely untrue,” Fincher explained. “But it’s amusing! The one in Contagion is amazing, but [the rumour] is entirely untrue.”

Fincher clarified that while the box used in the Se7en scene contained strands of blonde hair, to match Paltrow’s own, an actual prosthetic of Paltrow’s head was never made.

Heads up: Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’ (Shutterstock)

The filmmaker, whose credits also include Fight Club, Gone Girl and The Social Network, added that the notoriously bleak ending to Se7en contributed to the film becoming “one of the lowest-testing movies” in history – but only, he believes, because the test audiences asked to watch an early cut of the movie had been missold the film.

“In defence of this incredibly lame screening, when I got to the theatre where it was playing, I said, ‘I’d like to see the materials that you used to canvas the audience that’s going to be seeing this movie for the first time tonight’,” he recalled. “And they handed me this [leaflet] that read, ‘Would you like to see Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy) and Brad Pitt (Legends of the Fall) in a new thriller?’ And it was the single worst way to bait the hook for this movie that I could possibly imagine.”

Fincher continued: “Se7en has nothing to do with Driving Miss Daisy or Legends of the Fall! Se7en is an affront to that kind of cinema, which is the cinema of reassurance.”

The Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy, released in 1989, explored the friendship between an elderly Jewish woman (Jessica Tandy) and her Black chauffeur (Freeman). Legends of the Fall, meanwhile, is an epic love story from 1994 in which Pitt plays one of three brothers coming of age in the Montana wilderness.

In the same interview with The Independent, Fincher also recalled many of the actors who were attached to the film before Freeman and Pitt jumped on board. Most famously, Denzel Washington confirmed in 2012 that he rejected a role in the film – and that it was one of his biggest professional regrets. He did not elaborate on why he turned down the movie. And now, Fincher said that he doesn’t know why Washington said no to the film, either – as the offer was made to the star long before Fincher himself was recruited to direct.

Actor Denzel Washington this month, and Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in 1995’s ‘Se7en’ (Getty/Shutterstock)

“Denzel’s manager ended up being a producer on Se7en – but I think it was kind of a bait and switch,” Fincher recalled. “It was like, ‘if I produce the film, you can get Denzel’.”

Fincher continued: “I was told that Denzel had read the script, didn’t like it, and that the script was then rewritten, like, 10 or 11 times to suit him. It was rewritten ad nauseam, ad infinitum, in an attempt to get Denzel to say yes. But by the time I got involved, Denzel had long passed.”

The filmmaker added that Al Pacino was another actor who turned Se7en down, among others. “Almost everybody that I sent it to originally also passed,” Fincher said. “I sent it to Ned Beatty to play John Doe, and he wouldn’t even consider it. I was interested in Gene Hackman, and I met with him for about 20 minutes and Gene said, ‘I don’t shoot nights’. I said, ‘it’s been lovely meeting you, I’m a huge fan, but half the movie takes place at night – there’s no changing that. Almost everyone thought that the film was far too ghoulish to deal with,” he said.

Fincher was speaking to The Independent in celebration of a new 4K re-release of the classic film, a years-in-the-making task overseen by Fincher himself and sourced from the original camera negative.

“I’ve done the DVD version of Se7en, which was the 720p, I’ve done the 1080p version of Se7en, which was the HD version, and now the 4k [remaster],” he said. “They truly are different mediums. There are things that you can see in high dynamic range and 4K that you can’t see on film. And so [revisiting the film] becomes a very tricky thing to do. Almost surgical.”

The goal was to restore the movie to how it looked in its very first inception, with the exact contrast, film grain and colours that Fincher intended before it went to cinemas. “I could have worked on this thing for three years, comfortably,” he added. “The art is knowing when to stop. It was expensive and and a lot of people were asking, ‘Why is this [cost] so high?’ And I kept saying, ‘Because it’s not the 4k version, we are ostensibly remaking the negative’.”

The movie, which grossed more than $300m (£239m) worldwide, will also be released in IMAX cinemas in London this month. Tickets can be bought here.