One of Crash's most disturbing scenes occurs between Matt Dillon's character, Officer Ryan, and Thandie Newton's character, Christine. After Officer Ryan pulls over an African-American couple, he sexually assaults Christine while her husband is forced to watch powerlessly.

Thandie says that there was plenty of preparation for this scene. "I'd read the script and I just assumed [the assault] was just a suggestion, nothing more than that," she says. "I was so in denial about the horror of this. And when we had the discussion and I realized that this actually was going to go so much further—the horror of that just completely took my breath away."

Matt agrees that this was a particularly difficult scene to film and for him to watch. "In fact, at the premiere I kind of had to duck out during that," he says.