Elizabeth Berkley Revisits Cult Flop Showgirls

Elizabeth Berkley in ‘Showgirls,’ MGM

Given the incredibly vitriolic reaction to Showgirls upon its release two decades ago, and its subsequent ascendance to cult status, it’s understandable that the film’s star, Elizabeth Berkley, would have mixed feelings about the whole experience.

Today, she took time out to break down her favorite scene via Instagram — and in turn conveyed the best and worst of her time shooting the film.

“This was a rare moment during the filming of Showgirls where the director [Paul Verhoeven] let the camera run and captured my authentic longing for my own dream to be a performer,” Berkley writes alongside a shot of herself from the movie.

“In turn he captured [her character] Nomi’s longing, while watching the star of the show, Crystal .. I like this moment because it was a tiny moment in a scene where I wasn’t being puppeteered to mimic exact direction that was ultimately extreme and cartoon-ish.”

But Berkley doesn’t have entirely negative things to say about Showgirls: “Though I do love, and am grateful you guys love the camp of it all!!”

Berkley has previously said she was so devastated following Showgirls’s release that she stopped performing. “It was a bit of a difficult time for me personally, because a lot of doors were shut at that time. I had to find my strength and my confidence and go back out there again,” Berkley told Variety in 2013 while she was on Dancing With the Stars.

“I think that because it was so criticised, it was humiliating — doing anything that was connected to the film was not fun. So I think being able to find a relationship to my dancing, which something I loved, has been healing.”

Be prepared to learn even more about Showgirls in the coming months. The film’s 20th anniversary is in September and we expect Berkley and co-stars Kyle MacLachlan and Gina Gershon to make the rounds to reminisce about the NC-17 romp.