Exclusive ‘Hitchcock’ Clip: An Argument About Killing Your Leading Lady [Video]

Hitchcock releases in a couple of weeks, and there’s already a lot of buzz building around the film.

Starring Anthony Hopkins as the legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren as the director’s wife, Alma Reville, the film takes place in 1959 while Hitchcock was developing and filming what would become one of his definitive pictures, 1960’s Psycho.

The film primarily focuses on Hitchcock’s relationship with Reville, and, from the trailer, it seems to be that the interactions between the finely-matched Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren will provide the humor and the heart of the film.

A bit of background on the clip: At the time of its release, Psycho was considered to be a very controversial movie, thanks to the unprecedented level of violence and sexual content in the film. Much of this is reflected by the now-iconic shower scene, during which Norman Bates, dressed as his mother, graphically stabs Janet Leigh’s character to death while she is taking a shower.

One of the subplots for Hitchcock details the director’s plan to kill the Janet Leigh character in Psycho much more abruptly than audiences would expect. In the clip embedded below, he discusses this idea with Reville, who seems bored with what he considers to be a great and shocking twist.

Instead of feed Hitchcock’s ego, Reville snaps back that he should kill her after 30 minutes instead of waiting halfway through the film.

Hitchcock is directed by Sacha Gervasi and stars Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as wife Alma Reville, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, and Jessica Biel as Vera Miles. It releases November 23, 2012. Here’s the exclusive clip, via Yahoo Movies: