Celebrities Explain What Movie Sex Scenes Really Are

Olivia Wilde

“There is always a particularly large and hairy man holding a boom wearing a crop top. I don’t know if they’re like, ‘Ooh, sex scene, where’s my crop top because I need to hover above Olivia, make sure my hairy belly is somewhere in the vicinity of her face.’ People imagine it’s this really glamorous and sexy thing, but I always laugh because in reality there are 50 people in the room. You are stopping and starting. There is someone yelling, like, ‘Can you move your hand, can you just put your shoulder down, OK, good, more, more …’”

Ben Stiller

“You kind of just have to, when you’re doing it, serve the story and try and be as real and in the moment and do what’s required.”

Martin Scorsese

“In the ‘70s, sex was tougher, stronger, I think. Certain things were very powerful, and I mean movies like Five Easy Pieces or Drive… They were so strange. Now, to a certain extent, with the exception of Crash, which I think is an extraordinary movie, and the very powerful way that Breaking the Waves goes about sexuality — there is a kind of scrubbed-clean quality that is not even sensual anymore. They are fake images and fake bodies. How do you shoot a sex scene? What would you do? I personally don’t know how anymore… It really is tougher.”

Amanda Seyfried

“Sex scenes are great. A lot of my co-stars have been sexy guys my age, and so, why not? I’m not going to pretend it’s not fun,”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

“It’s a pretty technical process. It’s built out of lots of little pieces. It’s not as if we’re over there just making out and someone’s shooting.”