Faye Dunaway had proved to be difficult and many actresses had been considered for the role, including Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley, Leslie Caron, and Natalie Wood. Penn loved Dunaway and managed to convince actor and producer, Warren Beatty, who played Clyde Barrow in the film, that she was right for the part. Besides her relative anonymity, Beatty's concern was her "extraordinary bone structure", which he thought might be inappropriate for Bonnie Parker, a local girl trying to look innocent while she held up smalltown Texas banks. However, he changed his mind after seeing some photographs of Dunaway taken by
Faye Dunaway drama "Crystal or Ash, Fire or Wind, as Long as It's Love" as she wanted to work with director Lina Wertmüller. In 1990, she was reunited with Robert Duvall, with whom she had co-starred in "Network", in Volker Schlöndorff's adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name, "The Handmaid's Tale". The film did not do well at the box office but Dunaway's performance earned her good reviews. Roger Ebert wrote that, "Duvall and Dunaway provide the best moments in the movie, he by showing the unconscious egotism of the male libido, she by showing that in all times