Here is a list of some of the biggest names in Hollywood who’ve got it on for real in one of their movies.
In pretty much every film or TV show ever made, any intimate moments or sex scenes will be choreographed behind-the-scenes to look very realistic.
The majority of modern productions will also employ intimacy co-ordinators to make sure the actors involved also feel completely comfortable while looking like they’re getting hot and heavy.
However, not every film is created through clever camera angles and cutting away from scenes at just the right moment, with Letterboxd recently unveiling a list of films which feature actors getting down and dirty for real.
So with that in mind, here is a list of all the celebrities who you never realised had sex on camera, just in case you were looking for a list of films to not watch with your parents…
Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes
Pattinson said his orgasm face was ‘recorded for eternity’ in Little Ashes (PT Films)
While he’s best known for being a sparkly vampire and emo Batman, Robert Pattinson has also had numerous edgy roles over the years – with the actor playing Spanish artist Salvador Dali in 2008’s Little Ashes.
One particular scene has Pattinson pleasuring himself for real on camera as he believed that faking such things ‘doesn’t work’ as far as authenticity goes.
Speaking to Interview magazine in Germany, he told them: “My orgasm face is recorded for eternity.”
Aubrey Plaza in The To-Do List
Plaza in 2013’s The To-Do List (CBS Films)
During an interview with Conan, the Parks and Recreation star revealed that her role as Brandy in 2013’s The To-Do List involved masturbating on camera.
“In my head I envisioned a nice scene where you just see my hand slowly go out of frame,” Plaza said of shooting the scene.
“I thought I was doing one thing and when I showed up it was a whole different thing, it was a full body shot and I asked the director ‘what should I do’ and she said ‘masturbate like it says in the script.'”
Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg (body doubles) in Antichrist
Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg with Antichrist director Lars von Trier (Jean Baptiste Lacroix/FilmMagic)
If you’ve seen the 2009 movie, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you actually saw leading actors Dafoe and Gainsbourg having sex.
Indeed, unsimulated sex does happen in the film, but the bits you can’t fake were actually performed by body doubles.
According to director Lars von Trier, Dafoe was ‘too well endowed’ – which he believed would leave audiences ‘confused’.
However, this question was later put to Dafoe himself where he revealed the real reason they had doubles for the unsimulated sex scenes was that ‘Charlotte and I are both married and I’m not sure everybody would be cool with that’.
Chloë Sevigny and Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny
Chloë Sevigny and Vincent Gallo at the premiere for The Brown Bunny (Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage)
2003’s erotic drama The Brown Bunny was written, directed and produced by Vincent Gallo, who also starred in the flick opposite Sevigny for good measure.
The film proved to be highly controversial as it included a scene where Sevigny performs unsimulated oral sex on Gallo – a move which was received negatively at the time.
Sevigny would later reflect on the movie in a 2011 interview for Playboy, where she said the scene ‘very complicated’.
She said: “There are a lot of emotions. I’ll probably have to go to therapy at some point. But I love Vincent. The film is tragic and beautiful, and I’m proud of it and my performance.
“I’m sad that people think one way of the movie, but what can you do? I’ve done many explicit sex scenes, but I’m not that interested in doing any more.
“I’m more self-aware now and wouldn’t be able to be as free, so why even do it?”
Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley 9 Songs
9 Songs is considered one of the most sexually explicit films around (Revolution Films)
Widely considered to be the most sexually explicit films you’ll see, 2004’s 9 Songs sees actors Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley engage in multiple sex scenes.
Reflecting on the movie 20 years later, Stilley told LADbible that she stands by the film to this day, despite facing heavy backlash over the years.
“It’s a shame that it’s been torn apart into these little pieces and bastardised online, to be honest,” she said.
Lauren Lee Smith in Lie with Me
Lauren Lee Smith and Eric Balfour in Lie with Me (FilmFlex)
Her first reaction when her agent told her that her part in erotic 2005 drama Lie with Me would require not just nudity, but also live sex on camera, was to ask: “Are you kidding?”
As part of her audition she had a chemistry test with co-star Eric Balfour, and ‘there was apparently chemistry’.
Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance in Intimacy
Rylance would later express regrets over the film (Studio Canal)
The 2001 film Intimacy took the title quite literally, and in the film Rylance plays a bartender who ends up in a casual relationship with a mysterious woman, played by Fox.
In the movie, there was an unsimulated oral sex act and Rylance said the film was the ‘most difficult job’ he took in large part due to that scene.
He said: “I was convinced it was a vital story about the difficulties people face finding intimacy in a big city like London.
“Hanif Kureishi’s writing couldn’t have been more intimate and revealing, but I found the making of the film and the subsequent publicity and personal attacks very, very painful. I wish I hadn’t made it.”
He said he felt ‘undue pressure’ from director Patrice Chéreau to do the scene and thought that at the time he lacked the confidence to say no.
For her part, Fox said doing the film was ‘not one of her regrets’.
Nymphomaniac (body doubles)
The main stars of Nymphomaniac used body doubles for the sex scenes (Nordisk Film)
Shia LaBeouf would claim Nymphomaniac basically had a disclaimer ‘that basically says we’re doing it for real’ – however, the film wasn’t as x-rated as it seemed behind-the-scenes.
Movie producer, Louise Vesth, would later explain to The Hollywood Reporter that body doubles were used for the sex and digitally imposed that over the actors.
“We shot the actors pretending to have sex and then had the body doubles, who really did have sex, and in post (production) we will digital-impose the two,” she explained.
“So above the waist it will be the star and then below the waist it will be the doubles.”
