SEX EDUCTION
SEX EDUCATION HAS BLAZED A TRAIL OVER TWO STUNNING SERIES. AS THE THIRD ARRIVES, WE ASSEMBLE THE KEY PLAYERS TO DISCOVER HOW IT WILL CONTINUE GOING PLACES OTHER SHOWS DAREN’T
The people behind one of TV’S funniest dramas explain how they keep breaking boundaries. We’re not blushing, you’re blushing.
SINCE SEX EDUCATION thrust its way onto our screens back in 2019, it has lived up to its name, covering everything from ugly orgasm faces to fingering techniques and alien kinks. The Netflix phenomenon (series 1, announced Netflix back in 2019, was tracking to be watched by 40 million accounts within its first month) left no sexual stone unturned as Otis (Asa Butterfield), a virgin with an uncommonly mature grasp on intimacy thanks to his sex-therapist mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson), set up an unsanctioned sex clinic at school, dishing out tips to his hormone-crazed classmates.
It was the unashamed, explicit and often hilarious sex scenes that initially grabbed viewers, but magic really struck when the show moved beyond the awkward horny fumbling to address how bewildering, joyful, unexpected and wide-ranging sexual experiences can be. Few other shows on television could claim to have depicted storylines about pansexuality, a chlamydia outbreak, sexual assault, masturbation, asexuality and countless bodily insecurities with such nuance, sensitivity and emotional depth.
And as the students of Moordale High —
Sex Education’s specific and stylised John Hughes-esque school setting — return for a third series, the show continues to up the ante, with an exploration of shame and a raft of new characters. Jason Isaacs joins as ex-headmaster Mr Groff’s boorish brother, while the show’s first non-binary character, student Cal, is played by musician and actor Dua Saleh. And also shaking things up is Girls actor Jemima Kirke as new headteacher Hope Haddon, who swiftly makes some serious changes, including introducing — shock, horror — uniforms and clamping down on the students’ self-expression.
The school rules might be stricter, but mercifully Sex Education remains as revolutionary as ever, from its bold approach to portraying all kinds of sex on screen, to its dedication to telling inclusive stories. In keeping with the nature of the show, Empire’s Zoom chat with the class of Season 3 was frank, funny and unfettered. Just what you’d expect from the least-squeamish cast on TV.
Does anyone on this show get embarrassed anymore? The opening montage of the new series is another sexual smorgasbord... Ncuti Gatwa: I don’t think so. Emma Mackey: I think we’re past that point now...
Gatwa: So far past. It’s a dot. It’s a line!
Mackey: Far behind!
Gatwa: By the third season, we’re all so comfortable with each other now.
Asa Butterfield: Thank you, Laurie, for that. We’re all so comfortable... That sounded sarcastic but it wasn’t! It was genuine!
Mackey: It sounded so sarky! “Soooo comfortable. Thank. You. Laurie.”
Gillian Anderson: The unfortunate thing is the writers have to keep topping themselves. So if we continue to do more seasons, I don’t even want to think what we’re going to end up witnessing.
The show has been pushing boundaries since the start. How are you continuing to break new ground in the third series?
Nunn: We’re tackling a lot of different storylines that are to do with sex, but really at the core of series three it’s very much about shame. It has the power to be such a destructive emotion when it’s used as a weapon against people and when it’s used to keep people in boxes and to shut down their identities. Looking at the way that we’re told to think about our bodies and our identities and our sexuality when we’re young — if it’s not handled in a very sensitive and delicate way, it can really continue to wreak havoc on people’s lives as they get older. That’s very much the thing that interweaves between all of the characters this year, but hopefully in a Sex Ed, fun way... Shame, but fun!
Mackey: Shame, but cool!
Jemima Kirke: It’s a show about normalising experimentation and normalising not knowing what the answer is. It starts with sex, right? There’s this myth as teenagers that we’re supposed to be good at sex right away, you know? And we have a lot of shame about not knowing what to do, which is absurd because how could we know how to do something we’ve never done before?
How about the new characters? How are they pushing things on?
Kirke: Well, Hope is the new antagonist, I suppose. I don’t think there really was much adversity for the students to push back against in the other seasons. She sort of forces everyone to unite against her, and in doing so, they find their true characters. When you put people in uniforms and tell them a certain way to be, and what they can and can’t do, the rest of their character has to come through.
Nunn: We’ve also got a new character called Cal, who is our first non-binary trans character to join the cast. They’re played by an amazing new actor called Dua Saleh, who is also a musician as well. We’ve worked very closely with non-binary people throughout the whole process and with Dua themselves, who is also non-binary, just to
make sure that character is as authentic as possible. They were really, really fun to write.
Jemima, you mentioned the new Moordale school uniforms. Presumably those don’t go down well with the main characters?
Kirke: There’s this moment where one character, Ola, is asked to take off her LGBTQI+ badge and there’s a line, “Do you need to wear that badge for that to be expressed as a value to you?” It’s interesting to see what happens to a person if you strip them of their expression. And we do see at the end, without giving anything away, how those values are expressed.
Nunn: I think actually that uniforms in many ways are a really positive thing for people — they can be a real equaliser. But once that freedom of expression is taken away, the things that the students really care about, those real core beliefs, come to the surface. It actually doesn’t become about uniforms at all. It becomes about being passionate about freedom of expression beyond how you dress. It’s how you express your identity and your sexuality, and it’s a real celebration of when people feel that it’s okay not to fit in.
And what’s going on with everyone beyond the new outfits?
Butterfield: Otis gets a bit more mature. He’s now having casual sex with Ruby [queen bee of Moordale’s coolest clique]. If you’d said in Season 1 that this was where Otis’ storyline ends up, I would not have believed you. But it’s a sweet and surprising relationship that these two end up in, and I think Otis comes into his own a bit. She brings a real sassiness out in him. Him and Jean are getting on quite well this year, which is nice.
Anderson: Jean is pregnant and choosing to embrace that regardless of her age and being unpartnered. She is making the most of it and trying to feel joyous and free and respond to all