The Temp

The Temp (1993)

She'll eliminate the competition... permanently.

Peter Derns, an executive at Mrs. Appleby's Cooke Company, fears his future prospects are crumbling fast, until the arrival of Kris Bolin, a gorgeous, cooly efficient temp - and sultry temptress - who helps him develop a marketing campaign that slays the competition. But after two executives mysteriously die, Peter discovers his job security may vanish due to the one person he needs to trust: his temp.

Date of release
1993-02-12
TMDB
4.8 / 10 (72)
Runtime
1h 37m
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Director
Tom Holland

Casting

Interesting facts

The Temp is a 1993 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Tom Holland and starring Timothy Hutton, Lara Flynn Boyle and Faye Dunaway. Its plot follows troubled businessman Peter Derns, whose life is upturned after the arrival of Kris Bolin, a mysterious female temp worker in his office. Oliver Platt, Dwight Schultz, Steven Weber, and Maura Tierney appear in supporting roles.

Production

The screenplay was written by Kevin Falls and Tom Engelman. According to Falls, the screenplay was finished in 1989. In an interview at the time of the production, director Tom Holland described the film as an "erotic thriller with comedy overtones." Producer David Permut likened the film to "Working Girl gone bad," and stated that he had been assisting in developing the project for several years before production began.

Timothy Hutton was cast in the lead role of Peter Derns in March 1992. Lara Flynn Boyle, who had recently acquired fame for her portrayal of Donna Hayward on David Lynch's series Twin Peaks, was cast in the female lead role of Kris Bolin. For the role, Boyle gained 15 pounds (6.8 kg). In the role of Charlene Towne, Peter's domineering boss, Faye Dunaway was cast.

Principal photography began on April 9, 1992, and filming mainly took place in and around Portland, Oregon. The majority of filming took place in the historic Princeton Building in Downtown Portland. Additional filming took place in the South Park Blocks on the Portland State University campus, while the company picnic sequence was shot at Battle Ground Lake in Washington, approximately 50 miles (80 km) from Portland.

Filming concluded in June 1992. In an interview with local journalists, actress Faye Dunaway commented that she was "glad to be in Gus Van Sant territory," referencing the local filmmaker. "It's like a town version of New York. You can walk around. People are hanging out in coffee shops." Hutton later recalled of the shoot: "There were a lot of differences of opinion.

The film's original ending, as filmed by Holland, had Peter fighting for his life against Kris inside the bakery factory. The tussle results in Peter being thrown into cookie dough before falling onto a large conveyor belt; in the struggle, Kris' hand is chopped off by a piece of machinery before the conveyor belt slides her into an oven, incinerating her.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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