Celebrities Explain How Sex Scenes Are Filmed

Phoebe Dynevor had to film some pretty sexy scenes during the first season of Bridgerton and says she always felt comfortable thanks to the show’s on set intimacy coach, Lizzy Talbot. Even though things may have looked romantic on camera, she says that everything was always planned out and rehearsed. 

“We did the intimate scenes like stunts — we blocked them out, so you have yoga balls in between you and all sorts of things that never make you feel exposed in any way. You always feel safe. I’d rehearse with Regé [-Jean Page] so much that we both knew what we were doing. It felt very practical,” Phoebe told Glamour.

She added, “I felt so safe in the knowledge that Lizzy was there, so that if something went wrong or the director wanted something different, he could speak to her first. I think it would have been a very difficult experience if Lizzy hadn’t been on set protecting me and looking after me.”

Phoebe’s costar Jonathan Bailey agreed with her sentiments about the show, recently sharing that there have even been advancements in how sex scenes are filmed in the time between Bridgerton‘s first and second season. He added the this time around, the show’s intimacy coordinator Lizzy brought props to keep people even more separated.

“It’s amazing how that whole industry has just come on, even in a year. There are new tricks to the trade [like] little cushions. If there are two people doing a sex scene, the rule is they must have three barriers separating them. And there are certain acts where a half-inflated netball can allow for movement without having to connect physically,” Jonathan told Radio Times.

Before the days of intimacy coordinators, Sarah Silverman says sex scenes used to be filmed with little care to how comfortable everyone was. On the set of one film, Sarah says her partner was completely naked and she only had a small pair of underwear between them. Things got so rough, it “hurt to walk for days.”

“He is completely naked except for not even the thickness of a sock. I can completely feel his boner. He’s not even a real actor, he’s an extra. And he’s smashing me and fucking the shit out of me in the scene. I did [put on panties] but you couldn’t see. It felt very violating,” Sarah explained to The Mirror. 

In order to keep any undergarments from falling off or moving while filming, Dakota Johnson says they’re often practically glued to your body.

“I had these sort of strapless thongs that had glue on them. It’s not glue, but it’s sticky. They’re, like, basically if it were a nipple pastie, but underwear. But it’s only sticky at the top, it’s not sticky the whole way. It would also come off because the adhesive would wear out, so then they would superglue it to my body so that it wouldn’t fall off. And I would wear two of them,” Dakota shared with Marie Claire.

Filming a sex scene is awkward to begin with but when you do it with a friend, Natalie Portman says it’s even worse. She explained that when she filmed her scene with Mila Kunis in Black Swan, she realized she probably would have rather done it with someone else. 

“I didn’t really think through the fact that I was going to have to have sex with her in the movie. It was pretty awkward. I almost feel like it would be easier to do it with someone you didn’t know. But, having said that, it was great to have a friend there who, we could laugh and make jokes and get over it together,” she said in an interview with MTV News.

Blake Lively revealed that intimate scenes aren’t always saved for later in the filming process when people are more comfortable with each other. In fact, sometimes they get filmed on the very first day of shooting. When she was working on The Town with Ben Affleck, they recorded a sex scene on their very first day on set.  

“The sex scene was really awkward. It was my first day…so I guess it was good to break the ice,” Blake told Interview Magazine. 

In the past, sex scenes were often filmed with lots of crew in the room, which always made Olivia Wilde uncomfortable. 

“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!'” Olivia told Fox News.

Now that Olivia is a director, she in enforcing a “closed set” while intimate scenes are being filmed and setting an example for how things should be.  

Daisy Edgar-Jones works with an intimacy coordinator on the set of Normal People and says that through prep for sex scenes, it often ends up being like a fight scene.

“You need more protection because it is a stunt, with physical maneuvers that you need to make look realistic – just like in a fight scene,” she told Net-a-Porter.

Chris Pratt says that male actors should take a stand when it comes to protecting their on-screen partners while filming sex scenes. He says that on several occasions he’s helped create a closed set and often checks in with his partner to see how they’re doing.

“I don’t want to make generalizations based on gender, but I feel the responsibility falls on me and I’ve been in that situation a couple times. Essentially it’s your job to just minimize the discomfort by, you know, making sure there’s nobody else on set than is required, having a closed set, periodically checking in, and just doing everything you can to assure the person you’re with that they’re okay. For all the sense of anxiety that comes leading up to a scene like this, you get into it and you realize there’s really nothing sexy about it at all. It’s just really awkward. But you know, it’s part of the gig and you just do what you can to check in with the other person and try to minimize any discomfort that they feel,” Chris explained during a SiriusXM Town Hall.