Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron‘s scene in which she pees on him in their new film The Paperboy has been one of the hottest stories from the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

The film’s director Lee Daniels sat down with GQ to talk about the scene and other controversial moments in his work.

On why the pee scene was necessary: “Well, I got nervous at the end, after we shot it. So I called Nicole. First of all, it was really hard to shoot. It was the third day. The first scene we shot was the sex scene with John [Cusack and Kidman]. I like to get that right out of the way. The second day was the telepathic sex scene in the prison. And the third day of shooting was the piss scene. But, when right before I sent it off to Cannes, I called Nicole at three in the morning. I said, “Nicole, I can’t do it, I’ve gone too far. I can’t put that scene in the movie.” She said, “Lee, you made me pee on Zac Efron, if you don’t put that in the movie, you’re out of your freakin’ mind. I did it! I did it!” She said, “No way, you’re out of your mind.” So we put it in. That was the one where I thought, “Oh… No…” When you’re doing the script it makes sense, when you’re shooting it, it makes sense, but then you see the totality and you’re like, “Woah. Woah.””

On Zac’s reactions while filming the scene: “And if you could have watched Zac’s face: He’s supposed to be passed out and [while she's peeing] he’s just got this smile on his face. I’m like, “Zac, pretend like you’re dead!” And he’s just got this crazy smile on his face. The whole thing’s crazy.”

On Zac’s scenes in just his tightie whities: “I was just like, how can I make him look ugly? I couldn’t. Matthew [McConaughey] is handsome, at least, is older, so I could rough him up, but fucking Zac? It was hard. I kept twisting the camera but he always looked good. The tightie whities?”

FYI: In the scene, Nicole‘s character pees on Zac‘s character after he is stung by a jellyfish while swimming in the ocean.