The cast and creative team behind Fatal Attraction know it’s a challenge to remake the hit 1987 film as a Paramount+ series.

They all had hesitations when first hearing the pitch.  “My first thought was, ‘Man that’s crazy, why would you want to do that?’” recalled Joshua Jackson, who takes over the Dan Gallagher role from Michael Douglas.

Lizzy Caplan, who plays Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest role, also questioned, “Why would you do that? It’s perfect.”

But after conversations with showrunner Alex Cunningham (who herself almost turned down the job), the two were hooked by the new focus on marriage, infidelity and mental health that the original did not explore as deeply. In the series Dan is married (to Amanda Peet’s Beth) and has an affair with Alex, which escalates to a life-threatening situation.

Close herself has talked about her frustrations with the film in how her character was treated, and several of the series’ members revealed they had spoken to her about the update.

Jackson said he told Close about the show “and her reaction was a little bit lukewarm because I think for her there’s frustrations for her about how Alex Forrest’s struggle with her mental health was portrayed in the film, and how that was just reduced to ‘she’s a crazy lady’ trope. And so I told her honestly that’s kind of the point of what we’re doing here, is we’re going to dive into that. He’s going to have more consequences for his actions and she’s also going to have a fullness of her story and an explanation of the who and how and why she is who she is.”

“She actually liked that idea and essentially the conversation boiled down to, ‘Interesting, don’t fuck it up,’” he joked.

Cunningham also had her own interaction, when she hired Rick Caroto — who is Close’s personal hairstylist — as head of the show’s hair department. Caroto mentioned that Close was always saying someone should remake the project with focus on mental health, and Close had him give Cunningham her email if she wanted to chat.

The showrunner is hoping to find out at some point what Close thinks, saying, “I feel like we did our version of what she’s talked about wanting to see, and I think we did it with as much respect and empathy as we possibly could. I think you can see Lizzy’s struggle and pain the way you could see Glenn’s and I think even if she doesn’t love the writing, she’s going to love the performance. I’m terrified but I also know there’s things about it she’s going to love.”

As for the iconic rabbit scene in the original, Cunningham said she knew there had to be a bunny in some form, but “if you’re trying to tell a story where you’re trying to humanize someone with mental health struggle, for better or worse we know they can’t kill an animal.”

“We definitely wanted the rabbit to be a real part of it, but I came in knowing I wasn’t going to kill it,” she added. Caplan teased that from her view, “Times have changed, and yet I would argue that killing a rabbit maybe would have been better than what she actually does in the show. It’s been very funny, obviously it’s one of the most iconic parts of that movie, but there’s a bloodlust to people when they ask that question, ‘what happens to the rabbit?’ People want that rabbit to die.”