Age old question: Which one first? The book or the movie? How about movie vs. play?

Last month, a play based on the 1987 hit movie Fatal Attraction has opened in London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket. The movie’s original screenplay writer James Dearden has adapted the play and the cast includes some very familiar faces. Natascha McElhone whom we’ve gotten accustomed to seeing on the Showtime hit series Californication, plays Alex Forrest, the lunatic who becomes obsessed with a married man. While she plays the ever so patient and understanding wife of Hank Moody in Californication she is a totally different character in this play. She is very convincing in her role as every married man’s nightmare.

This statuesque British actress is a mother of 3 sons. What she went through during the 5th month of her last pregnancy is a truly heartbreaking story. Her beloved plastic surgeon husband collapsed in front of their London home and died of sudden heart attack. Natasha, while coping with his death, used yet another creative method. She continued writing letters to her husband and used these letters and stories from her young children to compose her book: After You: Letters of Love and Loss to a Husband and a Father.

Some highlights from Fatal Attraction besides Natasha McElhone’s versatility, as an actress was the real white bunny. There was an adorable and real little white rabbit in the scene where the spiteful Alex Forrest boils the family pet just to cause distress.

Another fun mini highlight worth mentioning is how Natasha called her co-star in the play Hank instead of Dan by mistake. Unless it is my ears playing a trick on me, she has really embraced being Hank Moody’s wife in Californication! Despite Natasha’s great performance, in the end, the play ceases to surpass the movie and merely reminds us of the moral behind the story.