What It's Really Like Filming Sex Scenes in 2019
There’s a moment in season one of The Deuce, HBO’s series about the budding sex-work industry in 1970s New York, that is undeniably hot. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character has sex with her boyfriend, who has an orgasm, but she doesn’t, so she turns away from him in bed and starts masturbating while he watches over her shoulder. It’s designed to feel lifelike and real, as are all the sex scenes on the show.
But imagine having to do that not only in front of a camera but an entire crew and all your colleagues. Emily Meade, who plays The Deuce’s prostitute-turned-porn-star, Lori, had to regularly strip down and feign hard-core sex while filming. Her scene partner was usually a stranger she’d just met that morning. There was very little time to prepare. Now 30, Meade has been filming sex scenes since she was 16 years old. By this point in her career, Meade is used to looking out for herself, packing things like nude thongs in case a comfortable physical barrier isn’t available on a set.
“When you’re doing any stunt on-set, there’s a stunt coordinator,” Meade says. “When there’s an animal, there’s an animal handler. And yet, when we’re doing sex scenes, there’s no protection in place. In my head, I was like, there should be some sort of liaison to oversee this.”
So in early 2018, before season two began filming, Meade called a meeting with the network and the show’s creators, David Simon and George Pelecanos, and asked for exactly that. “I was doing those scenes at a much higher volume,” Meade says. “Time’s Up and #MeToo brought me to this place of realizing that I felt uncomfortable and unhappy. And now we’re actually allowed to be unhappy.”
Their conversation led to the near-immediate hiring of Alicia Rodis, HBO’s first intimacy coordinator. If you’ve never heard of the fledgling profession, you’re not alone-as recently as 2015, there was, astonishingly, no such thing. That’s when Rodis, along with Tonia Sina and Siobhan Richardson, started Intimacy Directors International (IDI), a nonprofit that codifies best practices for simulated sex scenes. “It’s not one of those professions where someone can just jump on the bandwagon,” Rodis says. “You can’t say you’re an intimacy coordinator the same way you might say ‘I’m an Instagram influencer now’ or whatever.”
A post shared by Alicia Rodis (@alicia_rodis) on Dec 21, 2018 at 6:58pm PST
The gig might sound superfluous until you hear how many actors feel pressured to violate the terms of their nudity riders for fear of coming off as difficult or getting fired. And on the set of The Deuce, Rodis’s involvement fostered necessary communication, even if it felt uncomfortable. “This is where a lot of the sensitivity training comes in,” she says. “Sometimes my job is to help with language.”
But there’s more to her work than that. Before a camera is ever trained on its subject, Rodis has already checked in with the director about the objectives for the day and relayed those objectives to the actors. The actors, in turn, share any issues with, say, how much boob or thigh or butt will be exposed on camera. Rodis takes those concerns back to the director, and the negotiations go until a consensus is reached.
Rodis also has actors delineate what sort of choreography and touching they are (or are not) okay with so that all parties are clear on the boundaries. Until now, Meade’s method of protecting her health and safety was to pack that thong-yet another part of Rodis’s post is collaborating with the prop and costume departments to provide substantive fabrics or padding to place between bodies. “We’re coming from years of a cock sock and a prayer,” Rodis says. “When we put our bodies in certain positions, there might be a vascular reaction.” This could range from sweat to a full-on erection. “I try to make sure we have barriers made of everything from silicone to neoprene so that if someone does have a reaction, you don’t have to feel it.”
IDI’s methods stem from a long history of directors telling actors to “just go for it” in sex scenes, the thought being that catching performers in the heat of the moment makes for a more authentic result. The problem, Rodis argues, is that “just going for it” leaves space for thinly veiled-and sometimes not-so-thinly veiled-sexual assault. “When people say, ‘I want this to be real,’ it’s like, no, you don’t want it to be real,” she says. “This is not a documentary. I don’t want to know how you kiss. I want to know how your character kisses.”
Meade knows this to be true from firsthand experience. “A lot of people were afraid at first, like, ‘Alicia’s gonna come in and make everything PG,’” she says. “But the feedback about her has been great. The only thing that’s been frustrating is people who’ve said, ‘Well, you signed on to play a porn star, so what were you expecting?’ I’m an actor who signed on to tell the story of porn. I didn’t sign on to feel sexualized and uncomfortable in my real life.”
Even so, not everyone is on board with the new normal. Last year, after the UK-based trade union Equity announced it was considering guidelines for simulated sex scenes, Black Panther actor Andy Serkis called the idea a “censorship of creativity” and suggested actors and directors arrive at solutions on their own. But the reason IDI exists is because those conversations aren’t happening to begin with.
“We’re not there to police,” Rodis adds. “We are another presence in the room to help coordinate the conversations.”
Rodis’s impact has been so significant on The Deuce that HBO tasked her with putting intimacy coordinators on all its shows (she’s also the intimacy coordinator on Crashing, Watchmen, and the Deadwood movie). There’s been a ripple effect throughout the industry too. Besides Netflix, companies like Amazon, Showtime, and Hulu are all following HBO’s lead. It may seem like a no-brainer, but Meade can hardly believe it. “I was somebody who fantasized about making a difference,” she says. “Then you get into the business. Everything’s very ugly. You don’t feel like you have that power. To turn the fact that I felt powerless for so long into something that’s actually making a difference has been the most surreal and satisfying experience.”
And in a way, knowing that, say, Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke are a hundred percent on board with every touch, bite, or kiss they’ll inevitably share on Game of Thrones’ final season makes watching those scenes even steamier.
('You Might Also Like',)
