Blake Lively on The Town
“The sex scene was really awkward. It was my first day… so I guess it was good to break the ice.”
Keira Knightly on A Dangerous Method
“[I did] a couple of shots of vodka — definitely — beforehand, and then a couple of glasses of champagne as a celebration of never having to do that again!”
Mila Kunis
“It’s hard to have a sex scene, period. It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, a male, a female. You’re with 100-something crew members, lighting you, repositioning you, there’s no comfort whatsoever.”
Dakota Johnson
“Filming a sex scene is not a sensual or pleasurable environment. It’s really hot – not in a steamy, sexual way. It’s just sweaty and it’s not very comfortable.”
Vanessa Hudgens on Spring Breakers
“It was very nerve-wracking for me. I told my agent I never want to ever do it again.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
“It’s a pretty technical process. It’s built out of lots of little pieces. It’s not as if we’re over there just making out and someone’s shooting.”
Justin Timberlake
“It’s actually kind of annoying, you’re there for 12 hours, it’s exhausting.”
Olivia Wilde
“There is always a particularly large and hairy man holding a boom wearing a crop top. I don’t know if they’re like, ‘Ooh, sex scene, where’s my crop top because I need to hover above Olivia, make sure my hairy belly is somewhere in the vicinity of her face.’ People imagine it’s this really glamorous and sexy thing, but I always laugh because in reality there are 50 people in the room. You are stopping and starting. There is someone yelling, like, ‘Can you move your hand, can you just put your shoulder down, OK, good, more, more …’”
Jon Hamm on Bridesmaids
“It’s like running in the rain. There’s a certain point when you go, ‘[Expletive] it, I’m already wet. I’m not going to get any less wet, so I might as well just enjoy how this feels.’ I mean, sure, there’s awkwardness about being in a weird flesh-colored thong, bouncing on top of an actress. I am not a small human being. I weigh at least 200 pounds and I’m six-foot-two. And Wiig is a twig; she’s a skinny little thing. It’s weird and uncomfortable at first, but then all the awkwardness melts away and you think, All right, we’re doing this, so let’s have fun with it. You know what I mean? You’re in that moment and it’s happening and it’s not going to get any better, so you might as well enjoy it.”
Rosamund Pike on Gone Girl
“You’re alone with a man who’s not your husband who also has a husband … he’s in his underwear, you’re in your underwear, and you’re sort of dry humping on a bed.”
Dave Franco on Neighbors
“It was my first real sex scene where I show my butt. You’re not going to have that reaction when you see it on the big screen. It was nerve-wracking. I was pretty nervous. I met the girl the day before, and she was beautiful and very sweet. But it’s awkward. You meet each other and then you’re grinding. You don’t even know her name … barely.”
Amanda Seyfried
“Sex scenes are great. A lot of my co-stars have been sexy guys my age, and so, why not? I’m not going to pretend it’s not fun.”
Cameron Diaz on Sex Tape
“It’s just a part of the role. So I did it. I mean, you see everything.”
Jamie Dornan
“Your dignity is intact as much as it’s all tucked away in a little flesh-coloured bag… As a guy you put all your essentials in a little bag and you tie it up like a little bag of grapes and it’s tucked away.”
Chloë Sevigny
“When it comes to sex scenes, I’m not comfortable doing them — I don’t think anyone ever is comfortable doing those kinds of scenes.”
Michael Douglas
“The hardest thing about sex scenes is that everybody is a judge. I don’t know the last time you murdered somebody or blew anyone’s brains out, but everyone has had sex and probably this morning, which means everyone has an opinion on how it should be done.”
Kate Winslet
“You can literally be tangled in sheets and you turn to the other actor and say, ‘What the fuck are we doing?’ Dear Mum, at work today I had so-and-so’s left nut sack pressed against my cheek. It’s sort of unethical if you think about it in those terms.”
Angelina Jolie on directing a sex scene for In the Land of Blood and Honey
“You kind of suddenly feel this strange thing of asking people to participate in anything like that because they’re not a real couple. You find out how strange this is to ask anybody to get naked together and put a camera on them. [The actors] actually made me more comfortable. I was being a lot more prudish. I would have allowed them to be more prudish and they told me it was all right and important for the story. They wanted to do what they wanted to do and they were comfortable.”
Martin Scorsese
“In the ‘70s, sex was tougher, stronger, I think. Certain things were very powerful, and I mean movies like Five Easy Pieces or Drive… They were so strange. Now, to a certain extent, with the exception of Crash, which I think is an extraordinary movie, and the very powerful way that Breaking the Waves goes about sexuality — there is a kind of scrubbed-clean quality that is not even sensual anymore. They are fake images and fake bodies. How do you shoot a sex scene? What would you do? I personally don’t know how anymore… It really is tougher.”
Ryan Reynolds on The Change-Up
“So in the scene she’s (Olivia Wilde) sitting there, and I take her top off, I take her bra off, and she has those pasties on, but she’s drawn these adorable little smiley faces on them. And I forget every line in the scene. Not just from this movie, from every movie I’ve done.”
Ben Stiller
“You kind of just have to, when you’re doing it, serve the story and try and be as real and in the moment and do what’s required.”
Michelle Williams
“We shot the beginning of our relationship first, and it was fun and alive. Then we did the sex scenes and it was … toxic. Ryan and I had stopped relating to each other as Ryan and Michelle. Those scenes took forever. I had a long drive from set to home each night, and I would roll down all the windows and turn up the music as loud as I could and hang my head out the window like a dog and scream. It was my escape.”
Natalie Portman on No Strings Attached
“I’m pretty immature, so I get pretty embarrassed still. But yeah, you … I would, like, check out once in a while, certain shots to make sure I felt OK. Because sometimes once you see it, like, there was one of the panties coming off that we did, and after I watched it I was like, Oh that’s not bad, because it was really quick. It wasn’t like, lingering on anything that I felt, you know, modest about or anything. I checked a little. You do sort of go the opposite direction between takes. ‘Oh, what are you doing this weekend?’ Like, totally benign conversation between to make it a little normal.”
Lena Dunham on Girls
“I will be lying there, kind of being slammed by a naked body, thinking, ‘I want out of this bed. I want out of this scene. I want out of this life. Who did this to me?’ And I realized, I’m my own boss. I’ve written it. I’m directing it. I’m the person holding myself in sexual slavery.”
Michael Fassbender
“Sex scenes can be quite awkward. As a guy, the first thing you want to do is make sure you’re not taking advantage. You don’t want the girl to feel like you’re getting a free feel or something. I try to make a fool of myself in one way or another to lighten the mood and then just go for it, because you don’t want to be doing take after take.”
[Via Cosmopolitan]
