“Robocop” and “Starship Troopers” director Paul Verhoeven’s celebrated sci-fi action feature “Total Recall” has many memorable scenes and lines of dialogue in between its uncertain reality, Mars-set shenanigans and Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liners.
It also has some notable supporting cast members from Sharon Stone and Ronny Cox to Michael Ironside and Rachel Ticotin. However one of the most memorable scenes is a cameo, one played by actress Lycia Naff who also played the slightly klutzy but empathetic Ensign Sonya Gomez on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
That cameo?Naff took on the role of a triple-breasted prostitute in a Martian bar known as The Last Resort which Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid visits during the course of the film. As part of a retrospective interview with The Ringer, Verhoeven explained how he came up with that particular scene and said he originally planned a quadruple-breasted woman until he was talked out of it:
“I know that some women had, let’s say, not two nipples, but they have four nipples. Like a dog, whatever. That’s what they have. They exist, basically, and I’ve seen the medical photos when I was at university. And I knew that. I wanted four nipples and breasts, with big breasts and smaller breasts underneath. And Rob Bottin, I think, felt that it was too realistic for the film. And basically that three breasts would be more, let’s say, in the style of the whole movie.”
Bottin’s effects work in the film remains a gold standard to this day, from the Martian atmospheric decompression involving popping out eyeballs to Arnie’s explosive fake head at customs. Bottin and the film won the Oscar for best visual effects that year, and yielded a widely ignored remake by Len Wiseman in 2012.
