Trailer
Plot summary
Sid Vicious plays bass in the Sex Pistols, and Nancy Spungen, an American groupie hooked on heroin, has come to London with the band in her sights. Sid brushes her off at first, then takes up with her after she sells him heroin and after he sees the rejection she meets from other punk performers. The two fall in love, and the drug use they share starts to wear at Sid's standing with his bandmates, who take him on a tour of the American South without her. Sid's friend Phoebe, the band's road manager, tries to get him to stop drinking. Friends warn Sid that Nancy is damaging his life, and he ignores them.
Cast
- Tony Londonas Steve
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sid & Nancy (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Alex Cox first considered Daniel Day-Lewis for Sid Vicious, then cast Gary Oldman after seeing him as Scopey in a 1984 production of Edward Bond's The Pope's Wedding; Oldman turned the part down twice before accepting.
- Gary Oldman lost weight to play the emaciated Sid Vicious by eating nothing but steamed fish and lots of melon, and was briefly hospitalised after losing too much.
- Sid Vicious's mother, Anne Beverley, first tried to stop the film being made, but after meeting Alex Cox helped the production, even lending Vicious's own heavy metal chain and padlock for Gary Oldman to wear.
- Joe Strummer was contractually limited to two songs for the soundtrack, kept contributing unpaid material, and had the extra work credited to fictitious bands so his label Epic Records would not find out.
- Courtney Love rang co-writer Abbe Wool and sent a video audition for Nancy Spungen; the investors insisted on an experienced actress, so Cox wrote the minor junkie role of Gretchen specifically for her instead.
- Tears for Fears recorded "Swords and Knives" for the film, but the filmmakers rejected it for not being punk enough; it later turned up on the band's 1989 album The Seeds of Love.
- With work almost complete, a party claiming to own the title Love Kills threatened legal action, so Alex Cox changed the name at his lawyers' insistence, later calling Sid and Nancy bland.
- Slash wrote that the casting director unknowingly scouted all five members of Guns N' Roses in different locations and hired them as extras for a club scene; Slash was the only one who stayed for the entire shoot.
