Léa Seydoux Says Intimacy Coordinator Wouldn't Have Helped Conditions on 'Insane' Blue Set

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Léa Seydoux is reflecting on her tumultuous time making the 2013 award-winner Blue Is the Warmest Colour.

The drama — a coming-of-age lesbian romance — was met with controversy when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival that year, with some taking issue with its graphic NC-17 sex scenes. Behind the scenes, the two lead stars and several crew members eventually spoke out about director Abdellatif Kechiche's filmmaking techniques and on-set behavior, which he has denied.

One much-talked-about seven-minute sex scene in the movie took 10 days to film, Seydoux confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter in a new cover story. Kechiche also insisted on 100 takes just for a one shot used in the film, according to the French actress.

"It took a year of my life and I gave everything for that film. It really changed my life on many different levels," said Seydoux, 36, who is also known for her roles in Daniel Craig's James Bond movies, 2009's Inglourious Basterds and last year's The French Dispatch.

Seydoux and her costar Adèle Exarchopoulos became the first actresses to win the Palme d'Or along with Kechiche for Blue (typically the award is given to the director).

At the height of the #MeToo movement, intimacy coordinators became a new addition to film and television sets. The professionals serve as advocates for the actors when filming romance scenes, often talking through the motions, choreographing the acts and making sure everyone feels comfortable.

Even if they had an intimacy coordinator at the time, Seydoux told THR that it wouldn't have been enough to remedy her experience making Blue: "No. Not really. It was beyond. It was the whole film, not only the sex scenes. The way we shot this film was just insane. The guy is just nuts."

RELATED: Alicia Vikander Recalls Not Feeling 'Protected' on Set While Filming a Nude Scene: 'It's Never Easy'

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Back in 2013, Kechiche said he didn't want Blue to be released amid the controversy surrounding it, telling the French magazine Télérama at the time that he felt "humiliated, dishonored, living with a curse" because of the claims about his filmmaking style.

Seydoux told The Independent back in 2013 about signing on to the project: "It was difficult and that is the way he is. When I decided to make the film, I knew that it was going to be hard. I think I wanted that. I wanted to see how it was to go this far."

Exarchopoulos told the outlet she felt "embarrassed" filming some of the sex scenes. "He shoots for such a long time, I was thinking, 'Man, you can stop there!' " She added that the director wanted the cast to "really be smoking a joint and drinking beer; sometimes too much" for realism onscreen.

Added Seydoux, "Of course it was kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute. Of course, he uses that sometimes. He was using three cameras, and when you have to fake your orgasm for six hours ... I can't say that it was nothing. But for me it is more difficult to show my feelings than my body."

Kechiche told the outlet, "If Seydoux lived such a bad experience, why did she come to Cannes, try on robes and jewelry all day? Is she an actress or an artist of the red carpet?"