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Breakfast viewers wake up to the F-word

Sherna Noah
Tuesday 20 September 2011 00:00 BST
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Viewers of the BBC1 show Breakfast got a surprise yesterday morning after a film director uttered a profanity while comparing violence to sex in his movie.

The British actress Carey Mulligan, who stars in the new film Drive opposite Ryan Gosling, was on the Breakfast couch with her director, Nicolas Winding Refn.

Asked about the violence in the movie, about a Hollywood stuntman moonlighting as a criminal getaway driver, Mr Refn said it was "a bit like fucking".

The presenter Bill Turnbull apologised and told the Danish-born film-maker, whose credits include Bronson, the 2008 film about the notorious prisoner Charles Bronson, to "try to make the point without using that word".

In May Mr Refn won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for the action-thriller. The director, who apologised later, said : "Oh right... The violence is very much part of the sexual build-up... Violence in itself in the movie is an illusion.... it's unbelievable."

He said: "The job is to make it believable. When you do that the build-up is all about sex. It's all about the build-up."

A BBC spokesman said: "Unfortunately a guest used a swear word during a live interview on Breakfast. Bill Turnbull immediately challenged his language and both presenters apologised to viewers on air... We are sorry if anyone was offended." PA

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