‘Lucy in the Sky’ on HBO: Release the Natalie Portman Diaper Cut

Dear HBO Max, I pledge to subscribe to your streaming service if and only if you do one very important thing: Release the Natalie Portman diaper cut of Lucy in the Sky.

Allow me to explain. Lucy in the Sky airs on HBO this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, at which point it will also be available on HBO Now, HBO Go, and HBO Max. Back when Lucy in the Sky came out in theaters last October, there was a minor controversy over the fact that Natalie Portman’s character—who is loosely based on the real-life astronaut and criminal Lisa Nowak—did not sport a diaper in the film, and thus omitted a much-discussed detail of the Lucy in the Sky true story.

HBO Max has been offering many incentives in the hopes of convincing folks to shell out $14.99 a month for yet another streaming service, including the promise to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, aka Zack Snyder’s director cut of the 2017 movie Justice League. While I know that’s enough to get certain folks on the HBO Max train—like, say, all of the people who have been incessantly tweeting #ReleaseTheSnyderCut for three years—I already sat through one Justice League movie. I have no desire to sit through that same movie, only longer. (Reportedly the “Snyder Cut” may end up being a four-hour film split into six chapters, once Snyder is done spending millions of dollars of new VFX, scoring, and editing. Yeah, pass.)

But you know how HBO Max could pull me in? By releasing a new version of Lucy in the Sky in which Natalie Portman wears a diaper. Here’s my reasoning.

Who is Lisa Nowak? What is the Lucy in the Sky true story?

To understand the importance of the diaper, you need to understand more about the woman that Portman’s character is based on, aka Lisa Nowak. Nowak was a NASA astronaut who was arrested in 2007 for attempted kidnapping and other charges. Nowak drove over 900 miles from Houston to Orlando International Airport to confront another woman, AirForce captain Colleen Shipman, because Nowak believed Shipman was a rival in her romance with a fellow NASA astronaut, Cmdr. Bill Oefelein. The names have been changed in the film: Lisa Nowak became Lucy Cola (Portman), Bill Oefelein became Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm), and Colleen Shipman became Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz).

When Nowak was arrested, police found her with a steel mallet, a buck knife with a four-inch blade, a BB gun and a map to Shipman’s house. And, infamously, Nowak was said to have worn a diaper on the road trip, to save her time on the road.

Did Lisa Nowak really wear adult diapers during her 900-mile drive to the airport?

According to the police report that claimed that Nowak was wearing one when she was arrested, yes. “I then asked Mrs. Nowak why she had baby diapers,” wrote Officer William Becton in his report. “Mrs. Nowak said that she didn’t want to stop and use the restroom, so she used the diapers to collect her urine.”

Nowak, through her lawyers, disputed the detail four months after the report was filed, and denied ever wearing adult diapers. There were toddler-size diapers found in the car when she was arrested. According to Nowak’s lawyer, they were old diapers used by Nowak and her family Houston was evacuated in 2005 during Hurricane Rita.

It comes down to who you believe, but there’s no denying the story of the adult diaper took on a life of its own. That detail became the center of the story, mocked on late-night TV, referenced in every article about Nowak, and the punchline of jokes in comedies like Rough Night.

Why wasn’t the diaper thing mentioned in Lucy in the Sky?

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, director Noah Hawley addressed his choice to omit the diapers by saying, “That detail just didn’t fit into the story.” He also said, in that same interview, “I had a memory of a moment in time when the real story made headlines. But I didn’t know a lot of it, other than the tabloid details. What was interesting to me, as I thought about taking this on, was what’s really behind a tabloid story? A human being with dignity who made some bad choices and ended up in a story that is now smaller than it should be. Her human experience has been reduced to a joke, on some level. I wanted to try to tell that story, and allow her to retain her dignity.”

It seems pretty clear that the “tabloid details” he’s referring to, are, well, the diaper. There’s no doubt that it was a detail that was widely mocked when Nowak’s story came to life. But, at the same time, omitting the number one thing that people associate with her story in the movie her life is… weird. It rings false. It makes us feel like we’re being lied to. Whether or not the story in a movie is true, you always want it to feel true, so you can lose yourself in the film.

I honestly believe Lucy in the Sky would have been a better movie if Natalie Portman had worn a diaper—or, at least, if someone had accused her of doing so. Surely that detail, even if it wasn’t true, came from somewhere! That’s a movie I want to see, and I want HBO Max to pay Hawley to release it. It doesn’t matter that such a version of the film doesn’t actually exist! Neither did the Snyder Cut, people! They’re paying him to make it! Anything is possible!

To be clear, you do not need to be subscribed to HBO Max to watch the Natalie Portman space movie in which she does not wear a diaper. It’s just on regular HBO. But after you see the film, I think you’ll all join me in calling on HBO Max to #ReleaseTheDiaperCut.

Where to watch Lucy in the Sky