It’s easy to imagine most sex scenes in movies are simulated just to sell it to the audience, but there are some actors who apparently don’t always consider it good enough to, well, act.
Countless sexy moments exist in movies and TV shows, like the steamy car moment in Titanic or the very NSFW sequences in the 50 Shades of Grey series.
As viewers, we’re of course meant to believe that the characters are really getting down and dirty, but for the actors it’s just another make-believe moment they have to bring to life.
Titanic is among the movies with steamy scenes (20th Century Studios)
Each actor will likely have their own way of doing this, but you might not expect quite so many of them to actually do it for real.
Here’s all the ones that have…
Robert Pattinson
If you brain went straight to Twilight, let me stop you in your tracks – those movies were PG-13.
But the movie in which Pattinson actually performed an unsimulated sex act was released in the same year as Twilight; his 2008 movie Little Ashes.
In the flick, Pattinson took on the role of Spanish artist Salvador Dali and in one scene actually pleasured himself on camera.
Pattinson later told Interview magazine his orgasm face was ‘recorded for eternity’ – but he believed faking it just ‘doesn’t work’ when it comes to selling it to the audience.
Pattinson starred as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes. (Regent Releasing)
Aubrey Plaza
Putting the ‘coming’ into ‘coming of age’, Plaza also learned what it was like to pleasure herself on camera when she filmed her 2013 movie The To-Do List.
The Parks and Recreation actor admitted in an interview with Conan O’Brien that she originally thought her hand would just ‘slowly go out of frame’ as her character got to know her body, but when Plaza showed up on set it was a ‘whole different thing’.
She recalled: “I asked the director ‘what should I do’ and she said ‘masturbate like it says in the script.”
Chloë Sevigny and Vincent Gallo
In 2003, Gallo wrote, directed and starred in his movie The Brown Bunny opposite Sevigny – who also appeared in American Psycho.
In one scene that caused controversy at the time, Sevigny’s character performs unsimulated oral sex on Gallo; a moment which the actor later described as ‘very complicated’.
In a 2001 interview for Playboy, Sevigny admitted the scene was one which elicited ‘a lot of emotions’, adding: “I’ll probably have to go to therapy at some point.”
However, she added: “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?”
Sevigny has said she’s ‘proud’ of her performance (Wellspring Media)
Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley
If you know, you know – O’Brien and Stilley’s 2004 movie 9 Songs does not shy away from sex, so neither did its actors.
O’Brien and Stilley engage in multiple sex scenes in the movie, though the actors have found themselves having to defend the title after its explicit nature prompted heavy backlash.
Speaking to LADbible in an interview, Stilley said: “It’s a shame that it’s been torn apart into these little pieces and bastardised online, to be honest.”
Lauren Lee Smith
Smith took on some unsimulated sex scenes in the 2005 drama Lie With Me, though the actor has previously admitted that her first reaction upon hearing of the requirement was, “Are you kidding?”
However, after finding ‘chemistry’ with co-star Eric Balfour, the scenes went ahead as planned.
Lauren Lee Smith and Eric Balfour starred in Lie with Me (FilmFlex)
Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance
Years before he appeared in The BFG or Ready Player One, Rylance took on the role of a bartender in the 2001 movie, Intimacy.
As the title suggests, his character soon finds himself getting intimate with Fox’s character, leading to an unsimulated oral sex scene.
Rylance had his reservations at the time, but he took on the task.
Looking back, the actor has admitted it was the ‘most difficult job’ he’s taken on in his career.
He explained: “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.”
Fox, on the other hand, has said doing the film was ‘not one of her regrets’.
Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg (kind of)
Okay, Dafoe and Gainsbourg themselves didn’t actually engage in real sex while filming their 2009 movie Antichrist, but their body doubles did.
If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know there were some moments that would have been tough to fake, so the creators enlisted look-a-likes to get the job done.
When asked about the scenes, Dafoe explained that both he and Gainsbourg were married when they took on the roles, pointing out: “I’m not sure everybody would be cool with that.”
Shia LaBeouf (again, kind of)
LaBeouf character in his 2013 movie Nymphomaniac appears to engage in some real sex, but producer Louise Vesth later explained to The Hollywood Reporter that body doubles were actually used in place of the actors.
She explained: “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.
“So above the waist it will be the star and then below the waist it will be the doubles.”