Love Me star Heather Mitchell reveals secret behind TV sex scene

Heather Mitchell reveals what it was like shooting a revealing scene in hit drama Love Me, ahead of the series’ much-anticipated second season.

Before actors even step foot onstage, they are aware of a host of traditions that have been passed down to ward off bad luck, such as never uttering the name “Macbeth” in a theatre. But actor Heather Mitchell started a custom of her own – one that’s all about hope and good fortune. When she trod the boards playing a mother in the 2010 Sydney Theatre Company production of True West, she entered a messy house set every night and saw toast strewn across the floor. Rather than hurling them in a bin, Mitchell took those pieces of stale bread and used them as an unorthodox canvas, painting her castmates on them with watered-down Vegemite.

Over the years, she has committed the likenesses of many peers to sourdough – including Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill and Richard E Grant. “It has became a bit of a tradition that, on opening night, everyone would get a bit of toast,” Mitchell says of her distinctively personal gifts.

Wit, dedication to her craft and out-of- the-box thinking have been hallmarks of Mitchell’s since her stage and screen career began in the early 198Os. “I think creativity can be achieved in anything you do, no matter what that is,” she tells Stellar. It’s a particularly apt sentiment as she readies for the release of her autobiography, a project she never planned to pursue until an exercise in writing a short story about herself turned into a segment of a more far-reaching memoir.

Heather Mitchell returns for the second season of Love Me. Picture: Josh Woning

Along with her legacy, Mitchell – who last month celebrated 31 years of marriage to cinematographer Martin McGrath – started to contemplate the scope of changes she has seen in the entertainment industry since the #MeToo era ushered in more women in front of and behind the camera.

“Crews were predominantly men,” the 64-year-old recalls of the atmosphere on past film sets. “You rarely saw a female on a film crew as an operator or as a gaffer. The continuity person might be a woman, and then the make-up artists were women, but I worked on things where the make-up artists refused to come onto the set because of the attitude on those sets. I did feel threatened on some jobs almost daily. I felt very uncomfortable with a lot of the behaviour.”

Even with empowerment now more prominent in Hollywood and beyond, Mitchell is grateful that new conversations have begun. She recalls her lead role as former army lieutenant colonel and transgender woman Catherine McGregor in the 2018 stage production of Still Point Turning: The Catherine McGregor Story.

Love Me stars Bob Morley, Bojana Novakovic, William Lodder, Heather Mitchell and Hugo Weaving. Picture: Binge

Although the pair became good friends and McGregor praised Mitchell’s performance, the actor admits that if the same opportunity came up today, she would likely respectfully bow out if there were a trans actor equally qualified to play the part.

“It was of its time,” she says with a shrug. “The world has changed a lot and the politics of the world have changed a lot. Catherine wanted a woman to play her. She wanted someone with a vagina [in the role] because she has had a complete transition.

“Like with any things that are new to us, there will be extreme reactions from both sides, and then we’ll eventually filter it and get more comfortable with it.”

One tangible shift Mitchell welcomes is the introduction of intimacy co-ordinators on sets. “It was a free-for-all,” she recalls of her past experiences.

“Goodness, I remember that I turned up to one screen test and the American director had on a leopard-skin jumpsuit undone to her waist with her breasts sticking out, and there was a double-bed mattress on the floor with a sheet on it.

“The lead actor was already in bed with underpants on but no top; that was my introduction. I walked in to [find] this woman and a man in the bed and she said, ‘OK, just hop in the bed. You can leave your bra on.’ I got in to do the scene, and she kept saying to me, ‘Heather, your chins, your chins!’ Apparently, [when I laid down] I got a double chin.”

So when it came time for Mitchell to play the vivacious Anita to Hugo Weaving’s shy widower Glen in the acclaimed 2021 Foxtel series Love Me, she knew her best angles. She recalls, with a robust laugh, filming a vigorous first-season sex scene: “My only stipulation was that I was not getting on top because I am not going to have my face and my tits looking down!”

Although she and Weaving are old friends, Mitchell has nothing but praise for the work of Amy Cater, the intimacy co-ordinator on Love Me, and rolls her eyes at the mention of Sir Ian McKellen’s recent criticism that intimacy co-ordinators are a potential hindrance to the “purity” of theatre. “I’m sure there are many different sorts of approaches, but the approach that Amy took, I would recommend not only on film sets, but even in high schools,” Mitchell says.

“It takes all the pressure off of everything being about sex, and makes it all about human relationships and intimacy.”

Mitchell says she has long been offered generic grandmother roles, but she enjoys playing older characters with a full and healthy romantic life – from Love Me to the 2019 film Palm Beach – or rich lives in general, such as in 2021’s SBS heist comedy The Unusual Suspects to the 2022 play RBG: Of Many, One about late US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“Getting older is about expanding your life, not shrinking it,” she says. “We used to see ageing as a shrinking time: physically, emotionally and intellectually. Now, I see it as a time of great expansion.”

Season 2 of Love Me is streaming from April 6 on Binge.

Originally published as Love Me star Heather Mitchell reveals secret behind TV sex scene