The Original SUPER MARIO BROS. Movie Included a Mud Bath Filled with $3000 Worth of Worms
Remember that scene in the original 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie that features Dennis Hopper’s King Koopa and Fiona Shaw’s Koopa’s Queen Lena in a mud bath? While relaxing in the mud, Hopper says: “Do you know what I love about mud? It's clean and it's dirty at the same time.”
Well, one thing that I didn’t know about this scene is that the mud bath was also filled with $3,000 worth of worms! The funny thing is, you can’t even tell that there are worms in it!
When talking about the scene in an interview with LA Times, Shaw, whose credits include My Left Foot and Andor, said: “The first script I got was witty, That was maybe 10 scripts ago. Now they’re talking about taking a bath with worms.”
As you know, the script rewrites during the film’s production were a nightmare for the actors. It was out of control and that original witty script was non-existent while the film was shooting. It was explained that directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, improvised the story “as they inch along--and entering the eighth week of a 12-week shoot that ultimately went three weeks longer. At least nine writers have worked on the script--now grown as thick as nearby Wilmington’s phone book, rainbow-colored with rewritten pages. The only page color missing is the original draft’s. No white pages remain.”
When it comes to the tub of worms, it’s explained “that Shaw’s courage inspired the directors to add the tub of worms. During a scene in the Boom Boom bar, they had instructed Shaw to sip from a shot glass containing a worm. Assuming the worm was fake, she’d done as directed--only to find it wiggling from her lips. Shaw had maintained her professional composure until after the take. The directors loved it so much they’d asked her to do it again. She had reluctantly done so . . . and did it again . . . and again. . . .”
This film seems like it was a terrible production to work on! The directors were all over the place, and well… they never directed another feature film again.