On display screen, the pair’s issues come to a peak throughout what Empire calls their “divorce scene,” a church-set sequence wherein a tearful Napoleon slaps his spouse throughout the face. As Scott remembers it, the second was a complete shock to everybody -– together with Kirby -– however the two lead actors instructed the outlet that they really had an in-depth chat about their characters a number of days earlier wherein they determined to do one thing surprising with the scene. “She stated, ‘Look, no matter you’re feeling, you are able to do,'” Phoenix instructed the outlet. “I stated, ‘Identical factor with you.’ She stated, ‘You possibly can slap me, you may seize me, you may pull me, you may kiss me, no matter it’s.'”

Their alternative paid off as a result of the sensation on set at that second was apparently palpable. “That wasn’t deliberate,” Scott instructed Empire. “He simply f***in’ slapped her. She did not realize it was coming both. The entire room went–” Right here, the journal signifies Scott mimicked a pointy gasp. In response to Kirby, the pair wished to interject one thing thrilling right into a scene that was in any other case borrowing instantly from historic information. “We had been utilizing the true phrases from their divorce within the church,” she defined. “When that occurs, you may faithfully undergo an archival re-enactment of it and skim out the strains after which go dwelling. However we all the time wished to shock one another.”