1.
Ewan McGregor said it was “necessary” to have an intimacy coordinator on set for sex scenes with his wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead. They worked together on the miniseries A Gentleman in Moscow.
“We did have an intimacy coordinator!” he said. “It’s still necessary, because it’s also about the crew, and it’s odd to be naked in front of people, it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera. If you were doing a dance scene, you’d have a choreographer. It’s an important part of the work now, because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle.”
2.
Viola Davis’s actual husband, Julius Tennon, joined How To Get Away With Murder as her onscreen love interest and she explained that filming a sex scene with him felt “safe.”
She shared this anecdote with Jimmy Kimmel: “He had to take my panties off at one point, and then I had to keep resetting them — you know, because you have to keep doing the scene over and over again…But I forgot to reset them once. And so we got to the point, and he went to go pull them off. And [he went], ‘V, you forgot to put your panties back on!'”
3.
Judd Apatow has directed his wife Leslie Mann in several of his movies including The Bubble and This Is 40, both of which feature her character in sex scenes.
Leslie explained that having her husband direct her in those scenes isn’t as awkward as she expected. She shared, “He doesn’t get jealous, and it’s really weird. I think if we had mood lighting and it was a serious sex scene, then it might get awkward. But it’s just so goofy that I don’t think he cares.”
4.
Riley Keough’s husband Ben Smith-Petersen guest-starred on her show Daisy Jones & the Six as one of the guys her character hooks up with. And while the producers thought it’d be a funny Easter egg, Riley explained that it was actually more awkward than anyone expected.
On Late Night With Seth Meyers, she said, “The cameo came about because I have to have intercourse with a random person on the show. And the producers were like, ‘It would be so funny if it was your husband’…It was more awkward. I think [the producers] were thinking it would be less awkward but then we got there and they’re like, ‘This is really uncomfortable.’ Because for one, I’ve never had pretend sex with my husband.”
5.
Dave Franco has been married to Alison Brie since 2017 and she’s starred in a few of the movies he’s directed, including Somebody I Used to Know, where she has a few “intimate scenes” with costar Jay Ellis.
When asked if there’s any awkwardness knowing her husband is behind the camera Alison said, “It doesn’t make Dave and I uncomfortable.” She explained, “I realize that it sounds wild, but we are actors, this is our job. It’s actually not that weird. And with something like this, because it’s our baby that we made together, I think our first priority is always just the movie.”
6.
Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys played a couple on The Americans for several years and Keri explained that the sex scenes weren’t too awkward because they’re “comfortable together.”
Matthew added, “I get a little protective. I’m like, ‘Can someone get her a fucking robe, please?! She’s standing there naked, we’ve cut for five seconds, Jesus Christ.’ And they’re like, ‘Dude, this is the fourth season.'”
7.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, who’s been married to Peter Sarsgaard since 2009, cast him in her directorial debut The Lost Daughter. Knowing that she’d have to direct him in a sex scene she initially thought “maybe it’s not a great idea.”
Peter also joked about the experience by saying, “I’ve been recommending this to absolutely everyone. I don’t think there’s any relationship that wouldn’t be helped by it!”
8.
Kate Winslet had an intimate scene with Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Revolutionary Road, which was directed by her then-husband Sam Mendes.
She shared that it was a little bit odd for her knowing that her husband was just a few feet away and said, “It was the element of, ‘OK my husband is over there.’ That was a bit weird.”
9.
Chris Hemsworth and his wife Elsa Pataky played a couple in 12 Strong and he joked, “We’d been rehearsing for these characters for seven or eight years.”
As for filming the sex scenes, he added that those weren’t quite what they were used to at home. He said, “That was the big difference — the cameras and the lights — that we weren’t accustomed to. It’s not the usual setting for us.”
10.
Melissa McCarthy has acted in several of her husband, Ben Falcone’s, movies, Life of the Party, specifically, features an intimate scene with Melissa and her costar Luke Benward.
Coincidentally, Melissa revealed that they shot that scene on their wedding anniversary. She added, “It was so creepy, but it was pretty funny. [Ben] was like, ‘Grab his butt! Happy anniversary!'”
11.
Kate Beckinsale was featured in a sex scene alongside Colin Farrell in Total Recall, which was directed by her then-husband Len Wiseman. And apparently, Colin was more uncomfortable than either of them.
She also added that she’d never be as comfortable as her then-husband was in that situation: “It’s nice that Len is not very jealous and can be relaxed about me doing these scenes, but he would never be allowed to do that.”
12.
Anna Paquin and her husband Stephen Moyer originally met on the set of True Blood, where they played love interests. Years later, he got to direct an episode of the show that featured a “pretty intense” sex scene between Anna and Joe Manganiello.
“Once [you’ve] been directed in these circumstances, with a naked bloodied man and having wild sex with someone else, nothing’s weird anymore,” she explained.
13.
Madonna was directed by her then-husband Guy Ritchie in a sex scene in the movie Swept Away. She revealed that the scene was filmed toward the end of shooting because “the whole crew was waiting for Guy’s head to explode off his body.”
Madonna’s scene partner, Adriano Giannini, even shared that he was “terrified” to film the scene in front of her husband.
14.
Finally, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart were dating at the same time they played a couple in the Twilight movies. He revealed that because of their off-screen relationship, he felt even more uncomfortable filming sex scenes for the movie.
“I think the more comfortable you are with each other, the harder it gets to do any kind of really intense relationship scene,” he shared. “You’re kind of thinking, ‘I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of this person.’ Watching other people have sex is never going to be that spectacular anyway. It’s a strange thing when there’s so much hype about it. You are like, ‘God, I hope this lives up to it.'”
