‘This is so weird’: the awkward truth about watching your parents have sex on screen
Of all the rites of passage that an adolescent must endure, the worst is probably the moment when you are ambushed by a sex scene while watching television with your family. The full-body embarrassment of the moment – when you suddenly become hyperfixated on your surroundings and the knowledge that your parents are acutely aware of your presence and would be grateful if the floor opened up and swallowed you – is an important part of the transition to adulthood.
This is the experience for most of us. But it must be even worse if one of your parents happens to be an actor involved in a sex scene. Or, worse, you find yourself watching your father having sex in front of your friends. Or, worse still, you have to watch your father have sex in front of your friends or else you will fail your class at school.
This is the situation faced by Clara McGregor, the daughter of Ewan McGregor, when she was shown his film The Pillow Book – in which her father repeatedly appears naked – as part of her gender studies class. “Watching that movie at 17 with your entire high school class, it’s more like they’re watching me watch that film,” she told Jimmy Kimmel last month.
Obviously, this happened more than a decade ago. Clara is now 28 and a successful actor. She has a better understanding of the film-making process and the demands required of a performer in service of their art; she is probably much better equipped to separate the image on the screen from the reality of her family.
This is a good thing, because soon she will have to watch a TV show where her father has lots of sex with her stepmum. The Paramount+ series A Gentleman in Moscow stars her father and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Ewan revealed recently that an intimacy coordinator was hired to shepherd them through their love scenes.
Again, this is great. Intimacy coordinators are a necessary and important component of ensuring that everyone on a set feels safe and comfortable. But it also means that any family viewing of A Gentleman in Moscow is likely to be the single most uncomfortable thing that has ever taken place.
Then again, maybe there is a support group for this sort of thing. Ewan and Winstead are far from the only married couple to have taken part in a sex scene together. Reese Witherspoon and her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe had a sex scene in Cruel Intentions,
although they might not qualify for the family support group because, as Witherspoon later pointed out, their children have no desire to watch their parents simulate sex. “They’re like: ‘This is so weird,’” she said, not unreasonably.
Equally, spare a thought for the son of Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, who will never be able to grow up to enjoy The Americans as much as everyone else does, because of how monumentally excruciating it will be to watch his mother and father simulate sex on screen. You should probably feel a little less bad for the children of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, who had to film sex scenes during production of The Getaway, because nobody has ever enjoyed that movie, so they are not exactly missing out on much.
Maybe Clara will be able to find some solace from Viola Davis and Julius Tennon, who had to film intimate scenes for their TV series How to Get Away With Murder. Talking to Kimmel – a man who seems determined to uncover every detail about every sex scene – Davis revealed that she was so comfortable doing sex scenes with her husband that she forgot to put her underwear back on between takes. Tennon has two children from a former relationship, so maybe they will be the best people to approach when it comes to getting your head around the sight of your parent having sex with their new partner.
Of course, there is every chance that I am colossally, creepily overthinking things. Everyone involved is an adult and has probably long since moved past the discomfort of witnessing what is just a professional requirement. After all, in the scheme of things, watching your dad have sex with your stepmother is probably no less embarrassing than watching your dad star in that Obi-Wan Kenobi show from a couple of years ago.