TV actors talk about sex scenes
From the prescribed angles to making out with strangers, ‘it’s never not awkward’
PASADENA, CALIF.— Actors have no trouble handcuffing the villains, or executing a death scene, or outrunning a zombie or two. But when it comes to love scenes: those are only for the brave.
In the olden days, onscreen married couples were required to sleep in twin beds, lovemaking was a glancing kiss and deep dipping decolletage was considered censor material.
But with the ascent of cable television, almost anything goes. Shows like The Sopranos, Ray Donovan, The Affair and Shameless have pushed the envelope so far that even networks are getting into the act with raunchy comedies and heavybreathing dramas.
Emmy Rossum, who plays the oldest daughter on Shameless, says cable dramas have more in mind than titillation. “Showing sexuality as part of art is no different than showing any other part of life to inform the art,” she says.
“Sometimes you do have sex for a reason that has nothing do with sex. Maybe it’s about power. Maybe it’s about insecurity. Maybe it’s about just wanting to connect. Maybe it’s about just wanting to feel good . . . And sometimes it’s just that we get the chance to do something great to show the audience something deeper about a character . . . It really has nothing to do with sex and everything about emotion.”
Michelle Ashford, executive producer and writer on Showtime’s Masters of Sex, was already prepared when the show began because it’s about Masters and Johnson and their studies into human sexuality that began in the late ’50s.
“We had an interesting sort of dilemma or a challenge or a lucky thing on our show, which was that our show was about sex,” she says.
“So we came out of the gate knowing that we were going have to tackle sex all the time. And one of the things that was very appealing to me is they came at it through their work initially, which was, of course, science,” she says.
“So we had that built into our show and that allowed us to look at sex almost in the polar opposite way to how it has been approached, I think, for many years, which is how do you make sex look sexy?
“Our job was how do you make it look as unsexy as is humanly possible? Because what it was was a piece of science for us. So that was an interesting way to come at sex.”
Jane Seymour, who’s played some juicy trysts, insists that creating them is no fun. “It’s torture. The angle at which you have to pose, you really have to be a contortionist you know. If your leading man or you have any makeup on, that sort of slides from one person to another. God forbid you’re wearing red lipstick and, of course, the hair: it’s in the way. There’s nothing sexy about it at all. You try and make it be.
“Actually the sexiest part is what happens before. It’s the tension before. The minute they get together it’s like . . .” she shrugged.