Maybe, sometimes in the movie, I didn't tell her what was going on because I knew her acting would be better. She was a 19-year-old who, like the actors in Me and You, had never acted before. I didn't have the occasion to go to ask her to forgive me. Schnieder had died from cancer in 2011 and obituaries of her life suggested that it had been marred by Bertolucci's treatment of her while making Last Tango: In February 2013, Bertolucci discussed the incident in an interview with The Guardian, claiming that he didn't tell her in the hope it would improve her acting. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears. I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that. They only told me about it before we had to film the scene and I was so angry. The truth is it was Marlon who came up with the idea. That scene wasn't in the original script. In the same interview, Schneider outlined what happened:

However, although there was no penetration in the filming of what became known as 'The Butter Scene', there was also no evidence of it in the script. For me, he was more like a father figure and I a daughter.'

She told The Daily Mail in 2007 that there was no reality to the sex scenes: 'Not at all. And Marlon was the one – not Bertolucci, who goes on about being a member of the Italian Communist party – but Marlon was the one who brought sandwiches and wine for the crew and worried about them. We were working like dogs with an Italian crew, filming in Paris, overtime and all that, and two crew members came down with stomach ulcers. Marlon was such a good force on the picture. I don't know who he thought I was supposed to be. Makeup on a girl who's too young gives her the wrong character, gives her a funny look. She told Roger Ebert in 1975:īertolucci made me wear very heavy black makeup under my eyes. This was the man who stopped her from turning down the Last Tango role, saying: 'It's a leading role with Marlon Brando, you can't refuse'.īertolucci collaborated less with Schneider on her role than he did with Brando. It was Brigitte Bardot, one of Gélin's co-stars, who offered her shelter, giving her a room in her house for two years and helping Schneider find her agent, William Morris. Her father, French actor Daniel Gélin, refused to acknowledge her existence until she was in her teens, and she had left to live in Paris at 15 after her mother refused to let her study.

Like Brando, who suffered an abusive childhood at the hands of an absent mother and alcoholic father, Schneider had grown up quickly.

Last tango in paris butter scene