Rachel McAdams Says Her Sex Scene with Rachel Weisz Had an 'Energy' She Never Had with Male Actors
No offense Ryan Gosling, but Rachel McAdams’ favorite sex scene was not in The Notebook.
Instead, the actress recently revealed to Entertainment Weekly that she had the best-simulated sex of her life while filming her new movie Disobedience with Rachel Weisz. The duo play lovers forced to hide their relationship from their Orthodox Jewish community in the upcoming film based on the Naomi Alderman novel of the same name.
“Often, you’re trying to decide if it’s gratuitous or not,” McAdams, 39, said of filming the movie’s sex scene. “But this scene felt so integral to the plot and moving the story forward. The characters need this release to open up… There was energy to that scene that I haven’t experienced in any other sex scenes [with men] in my career.”
McAdams added that there was a “camaraderie” to filming a sex scene with a fellow actress. “We both felt safe and free … All those things that you love about being a woman, you get to be [in the scene], so I understand the attraction and appeal to that in a sexual context.”
The sex scene in question “is a massively important and beautiful scene,” Weisz, 48, added, noting that their director, Sebastián Lelio, “storyboarded it precisely a couple weeks before we shot it.”
Even the scene’s most memorable moment was choreographed by Lelio. “He made it clear everything he wanted: the wetness, me spitting in Rachel’s mouth, and [a focus on] Esti’s orgasm — my character [originally] had an orgasm, too, but I had to agree as a producer, even though it was a very good orgasm, it wasn’t as good for the story as Esti’s,” Weisz said. “In that moment, Esti’s orgasm is both a sexual release and a metaphorical release to freedom, it’s like she’s free to find out who she really is.”
Weisz also noted the differences between performing a sex scene with a male versus a female actor, saying, “normally as you do a sex scene it’s kind of freestyle. You get in the bed and in my case it’s always with men and you see what happens. It can come out a bit meaningless and generalized.”
She added, “I think Sebastian would say it’s the center of the movie, the heart of the movie, the deep inside of the movie. It was important to him. We had a whole day to shoot it. It was full of meaning, it wasn’t just random. All the ideas he came up with, you know spitting in Esti’ mouth, those were ideas he authored as an auteur, they were his authorship. They weren’t mine or Rachel McAdams’, we just saw the storyboard and thought, ‘That looks really interesting and beautiful.’ ”
As for the saliva swapping, McAdams said with a laugh, “I was excited that Sebastián was doing something new. It’s provocative and brings the audience into something intimate … The makeup department tested out different flavors of lube the night before to use as the spit. We settled on lychee-flavored!”
Disobedience hits theaters April 27.
