A great sex scene will make a movie. Who can forget the steamy BDSM scenes in 50 Shades of Grey or the steamy parts of Blue is the Warmest Color, or whatever the hell happened in Borat. We’re turned on by seeing our favorite stars bare all for our titillation and Hollywood knows it. Sex sells. But turns out making our fantasies come alive on screen is pretty terrible for the actors that have to simulate it. The Guardian has an ongoing series with a secret but real life Hollywood actress. She tells of downside of filming sex scene.
“Saying I love you, screaming I hate you, crying, killing, dying and mourning are all things I’ve had to simulate over the course of my career. But nothing beats the intimacy of physical intimacy when it comes to impersonation. This is largely to do with the fact that your body doesn’t know that what’s happening isn’t real. The body reacts as bodies in those moments of intimacy do – they sweat, they redden, they harden. The hardening part was once skillfully addressed by an actor I was about to have crazy sex with, with a sanguine: ‘Forgive me if I do, forgive me if I don’t.” It gives a whole new spin on performance anxiety.'”
Harden? Yikes, sounds terrible. Hollywood actors might be making ungodly amounts of money and have millions of adoring fans. They have fancy houses and cars, sure, but nothing can make up for how incredibly awkward taking your clothes off in front of strangers can be. So the next time you’re enjoying a romp on screen and you get a bit overheated remember this image:
“I will leave you with the image of a naked girl (me) lying on her back with a rectangular sheath covering her nether regions, waiting for an actor whose dick is basically in a sock, jumping up and down trying to shake off the terrible pins and needles in his legs. The tableau is complete only when you add in a yawning boom operator and a producer on his phone, yelping where to go for dinner. Super sexy all round.”
Here’s to you, actors!
h/t Guardian