19 Celebs Who Admit That Sex Scenes Aren't As Hot When You're Filming Them (And Now I Can't Unsee It)
Watching a perfectly lit, vibe-curated love scene between two really attractive actors can be super hot.
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It's crafted with that in mind, but on set? It can be anything but. That's not to say that sometimes, things don't get steamy on set, but it's not the norm.
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Check out what these celebs have to say about making magic happen that's hot for viewers and not too painfully awkward for everyone else.
Bridgerton had some of the hottest sex scenes in recent TV history. That's thanks to the hard work of the show's intimacy coach, Lizzy Talbot, who put safety at the forefront of these racy scenes.
"It really was like shooting a stunt, it looked real, but we've got padding on. The angles are very … I mean, I've shot intimacy scenes before in the past without any of that. And I can't believe really how new this all is, because it just changed the game," star Phoebe Dynevor told Harper's Bazaar.
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"We felt super safe and it just meant that when we got on set, we already knew exactly what we're doing," she continued.
"We'd blocked it all so specifically. I knew exactly where his hand was going to go at what point. So it just meant that there wasn't any room for a director to go, 'Oh, I want to see this now.'"
Daisy Edgar-Jones also likened her love scenes in Normal People to stunt work.
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"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.
"Mentally, it's a really vulnerable place to put yourself in. You need to feel like you have the control and agency in those moments so that you can feel relaxed and give a better performance."
It is something you get more used to, especially when you're working with the same actor for a long time, according to Lucy Hale's Pretty Little Liars experience.
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"I think when we started working with each other we were both super nervous and making sure we were in tip-top shape, and then towards the end, we didn't care," Lucy Hale recalled to People.
Robert Pattison also built a comfortable relationship with Kristen Stewart while filming Breaking Dawn.
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"I think the more comfortable you are with each other, the harder it gets to do any kind of really intense relationship scene," he pointed out.
"You're kind of thinking, 'I don't want to embarrass myself in front of this person.'"
You can get so comfortable you can forget to take it seriously, like Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke.
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"If you've known someone for six years, and they're best friends with your girlfriend, and you're best friends with them, there is something unnatural and strange about doing a love scene," Harington told Vanity Fair in May 2018.
"[Emilia Clarke and I will] end up kissing and then we're just pissing ourselves with laughter because it's so ridiculous."
Natalie Portman figured out that sometimes you can be too comfortable, like when she had to film a love scene with Mila Kunis in Black Swan.
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"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," she told MTV News.
"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."
It's also important to feel responsible toward your partner, noted Chris Pratt when asked about his scene with Jennifer Lawrence in Passengers.
"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," he said.
"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."
Jesse Metcalfe said preparing mentally didn't keep him from feeling overwhelmed after shooting his first sex scene with Eva Longoria.
"In the first scene we ever had, where Gabriella and John first had sex [in Desperate Housewives], we were rehearsing and then the director was like, 'OK, get out of bed; we have to reset the set,' and I was like, 'I need a minute,'" he told 106.5 in Sacramento.
Physically preparing with lots of stickies is not always helpful either, Dakota Johnson says.
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"Jamie's little pouch. It's super not glamorous — it's really unsexy. He wore that, and I had these sort of strapless thongs that had glue on them," she told Marie Claire of her 50 Shades sex scenes.
"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. It's not painful, I mean, it's barely anything. But I guess you have some sense of being covered. It's f*cking bizarre."
It can be hard to navigate when you have a significant other, Charlie Hunnam pointed out. "I try to be sensitive to the fact that we're doing something intimate, but also keep a clear boundary," he told Elle.
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"I'm also a germophobe. I've been profoundly germophobic since I was a young child. I don't want to kiss anyone but my girlfriend for my whole life."
Most actors can agree that over anything else, it's just awkward. "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,'" Jon Hamm said of his sex scenes in Bridesmaids.
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"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," he continued.
"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."
It's hard to ignore that there are so many people around, argues Olivia Wilde.
"People imagine it's this really glamorous and sexy thing, but I always laugh because in reality there are 50 people in the room," she shared.
"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…'"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt says it's nothing like the real thing. "It's a pretty technical process," he explained of how he handled shooting the many scenes involved in Don Jon.
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"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."
Rosamund Pike was pretty much in the same boat with her scene with Neil Patrick Harris in Gone Girl.
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"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," Pike told Huffington Post.
It doesn't make for good small talk when someone asks you about work, noted Kate Winslet.
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"It's a profoundly bizarre thing to do. As actors, you talk about it all the time. You can literally be tangled in sheets, and you turn to the other actor and say, 'What the f*ck are we doing?'" she shared.
"'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."
As Jenna Dewan noted, it would almost be weird to get used to it.
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"It's never fun [shooting love scenes], but you just get really used to it, it's weird. They [then-husband Channing and her Witches of East End co-stars] are, like, really good friends, so it's even more awkward," she shared.
"'Yeah, we have this love scene, but we were just hangin' with our wives and husbands ...' It's acting, you know — it's weird."
It's about learning to be uncomfortable and, sometimes, letting your character be uncomfortable, according to Viola Davis.
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"I'm just a human being at the end of the day — and I'm doing something very private in public," she acknowledged.
"The nerves and the insecurities and [everything] I feel is a part of Annalise. I cannot will her to be made of Teflon before she dives on top of a very hot-looking guy!"
Halle Berry also had to centralize the character in conversations about her Monster's Ball sex scene.
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"[The love scene] was explicit in the minds of some people, and I was getting paid nothing. They thought if you're going to do something like that, get a shitload of money," she recalled, explaining she ignored the advice and tried to understand the scene better instead.
"[Money's] not why I'm doing it. I didn't feel it was exploitative. It was necessary for the character."
And as if that isn't all enough, Michael Douglas reminds us that people are critiquing your work in that moment.
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"The hardest thing about sex scenes is that everybody is a judge," he said about his sex scene in 2014's Behind the Candelabra, filmed in just one take.
"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."
