Director reveals The Woman in Cabin 10 scene that almost got cut – and why he fought for it

Netflix recently released a new psychological thriller, The Woman in Cabin 10, and director Simon Stone has revealed the one scene that almost got cut and why he fought to keep it in the final script.

The movie, which is number one on Netflix right now, stars Keira Knightley as Laura, a journalist covering the maiden voyage of a luxury yacht. At first, everything seems glamorous and exciting, but things take a dark turn when Laura becomes convinced she’s seen a woman being thrown overboard. The problem is that every passenger is accounted for. Soon, her story and her sanity start to fall apart.

So, which scene almost didn’t make it into The Woman in Cabin 10?

via Netflix

In an interview with RadioTimes.com, Simone Stone said, “The moment that I always knew I was going to have, and it disappeared from the script and it came back, was the ‘stop’ written on the mirror.”

Keira Knightley, who plays Laura, said Stone was completely committed to that moment, and it’s not hard to see why. “Yeah, like I know that’s going to be an awesome moment,” Stone explained. “Because the scary thing is someone was just in the room with her. But it’s also the moment where she goes, ‘They’ve shown themselves. This person, whoever it is, has shown that they exist. I am therefore not crazy.’ So there’s a triumph in it as well.”

That tiny but powerful detail, one word written in steam on a mirror, manages to capture both the fear and the relief at the heart of the story. It proves Laura isn’t imagining things, even if no one else believes her.

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With the film adaptation, he wanted to create something new

via Netflix

Of course, adapting Ruth Ware’s bestselling novel came with a few challenges. Stone didn’t want to simply copy the book, instead, he wanted to create something that felt new and cinematic. “If it’s the shadow of a previous thing, you can’t gain anything from that,” he said. “The only thing you can do is treat it as if you’re making your own piece of work.”

To do that, Stone focused on making the film feel deeply personal. He did that through the casting, the look of the boat, and the overall atmosphere.

“With books, you project yourself onto the characters,” he explained. “But in films, you empathise with someone else’s situation. You’re watching the subjectivity of another person, not your own imagination.”

And that’s exactly what The Woman in Cabin 10 does so well. It pulls viewers right into Laura’s experience, her fear, her confusion, and her determination to prove she’s not losing her mind.

In the end, it’s that one eerie scene, the word “stop” appearing on the mirror, that perfectly sums up Stone’s vision: Intimate, unsettling, and impossible to forget.

The Woman in Cabin 10 is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.