asks a reader Us, “How Do Actors Avoid Getting Aroused During Sex Scenes?” The tough moments arrive Challengers and on shows like Foreigner have made Us I also wonder about this very important question, so we contacted the intimacy coordinator Brooke M. Haney for the inner scoop.
Haney, which has been worked on Elsbeth, Mayor of Kingstown And Haarlem and wrote recently Manual for the intimacy coordinator: specialties for theater and filmrevealed that those behind-the-scenes moments aren’t that sexy.
“Here’s the thing,” Haney tells me We weekly. “This is actually not that common. We’re working, right? With the lights on, microphones, a few cameras in your face, director, DP [director of photography] and other necessary crew members watching on monitors, it’s just not that sexy. However, sometimes bodies have physiological responses that are beyond our control. If that does happen, I tell the actor to do a few push-ups or a few jumping jacks. That moves the blood to another location and we’re all fine.”
Of course, many stars have found love while working. Long before they had two children, Ryan Gosling And Eva Mendes had sex scenes in 2012 The place behind the Pines; Rose Leslie And Kit Harrington (who got married in 2018). Us feeling hot and bothered while above the wall Game of Thrones; And Anna Paquin And Stephen Moyer has shared more NSFW scenes than we can remember Real Bloodeventually tying the knot and welcoming off-screen twins in later seasons.
While Haney confirms that they’ve witnessed some on-screen love interests turn into real-life relationships off-screen, their job is to make sure they keep the love scenes professional.
“One of the jobs of an intimacy coordinator is to make sure everything works on set, and part of that can be ‘closing practices,’ especially when working with younger actors. When I work at a university or something, I do some kind of closing exercise or de-role technique,” they explain.
The practices help actors get out of character. Haney notes that while the actor’s mind knows he is faking everything, the body doesn’t realize that. These techniques help actors distinguish between what they feel and what they portray.
Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe’s steamy ‘Outlander’ sex scenes inspired a question from an Us Weekly reader.
Sony Pictures Television“I’m not going to be in charge of what actors do on their own time, that’s their business,” they say. “But when we are at work, it should never be about their personal relationship. It has to be about the characters.”
The intimacy coordinator emphasized that no matter how realistic the scene looks or how much chemistry you see while watching, your favorite shows and movies only simulate sex.
“It’s always fake,” Haney says. “So any actual sexual act is a no-no. And we close the set for intimacy scenes, so that only anyone who needs to be on set or on the monitor to take the shot can be there. So we can reduce a crew of 50 or 100 to eight or 10 for those scenes, and that’s for the privacy of the actors and also for the protection of the crew. Most of us don’t go to work and see our coworkers walking around naked. So it’s about everyone’s professional working environment.”
Outlander, Sex/Life and more TV shows and movies have hired intimacy coordinators to manage sex scenes. “My job at the beginning of the season was No. 1: reach out to them and say, ‘Okay, so you’re together this season, how can I help you feel safe?’” Excludes Casey Hudecki, sex coordinator/ life intimacy told us weekly […]
Haney also noted that audiences don’t just have the actors to thank for those wonderfully steamy scenes. There are plenty of people working behind the camera to bring those sparks to the screen.
“The audience has to think it’s real, and the actors have to feel like it’s fake,” they say. “That’s what the choreography is there. A lot of credit goes to the editor, the director and the editor. Film and TV are such a medium for editors, and the DP, how that shot is made, tells the story. But to a large extent it is also the choreography. If we’re trying to tell a comedy, how much bounce do we put into it, or what’s the wildest position I can get your body into with your legs in the air? Unlike if it’s a series and we’ve been waiting for so long for these two characters to connect and the audience is dying to see their chemistry, where’s the eye contact? How slow is the touch? How is it built up and intensified? It’s really about the choreography.”
If you have a burning entertainment question for our team of experts, email AskUs@usmagazine.com. Read more in this week’s relaunch issue the brand new one We weeklyfeaturing 12 additional pages, a redesigned look, and new franchises you’ll love — on newsstands now.
Reporting by Leanne Aciz Stanton