Shocking stories behind famous film and TV sex scenes

A TRIP to the emergency room, a star who got tanked and an actor who did his first love scene while his mum watched — shooting a sex scene is a weird day at work.

When it comes to shooting sex scenes, it’s no secret that every set has their own method. Some use stand-ins, others go for the real deal, and a few have gone so far they’ve almost been banned. Whatever way they’re accomplished, the actors involved are bound to come away with a few stories, and boy, do they. Sex scenes are no walk in the park, and when you’re dropping your clothes with a near-stranger, things are bound to get a little … uncomfortable.

Henry Cavill, The Tudors

Henry Cavill (top row, second from right), in Tudors. Picture: AP Photo/Showtime

Period drama The Tudors was known for its raunchy sex scenes, but shooting them wasn’t as steamy as one might guess. Henry Cavill, who we all know now as Superman, once found himself between a rock and a hard place on set: “A girl had to be on top of me, she had spectacular breasts, and I hadn’t rearranged my stuff into a harmless position. She’s basically rubbing herself all over me and, um, it got a bit hard,” he told Men’s Health. “I had to apologise profusely afterwards. It’s not great when you’re in a professional acting environment, and somebody gets a boner, is it? No, not acceptable.”

Anne Hathaway, Love & Other Drugs

The pair had great chemistry in the raunchy 2010 rom com.

Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal shared a fair amount of sex scenes in Love & Other Drugs, including one where she accidentally gets naked in front of Gyllenhaal’s friend. Hathaway got a bit ahead of herself, however, when it came to getting into character.

“I have to remove my trench coat and be nude underneath, and I thought we were filming, but it turned out we were just rehearsing and I got unnecessarily naked in front of a lot of people!”

Ryan Reynolds, The Change-Up

Ryan Reynolds (right) with Jason Bateman in The Change-Up.

While shooting a steamy scene for The Change-Up, Ryan Reynolds lost his ability to speak when Olivia Wilde played a prank on him.

“So in the scene she’s sitting there, and I take her top off, I take her bra off, and she has those pasties on, but she’s drawn these adorable little smiley faces on them. And I forget every line in the scene. Not just from this movie, from every movie I’ve done,” Reynolds said. “At some point in the scene, she takes my hands and puts them on her breasts. I take my hands away, and I look down at my hands, and there are two frickin’ smiley faces on them and I have no idea what to do. And I reflexively, like an idiot, just put my hands right back on her breasts!”

Allison Williams, Girls

The actress starred in a Girls sex scene that shocked viewers.

While shooting an intimate sex scene that’s now near-infamous, Allison Williams was desperate to make it as comfortable as possible for her partner: “I grabbed the makeup girl and said, “I want to smell like a cake,” so we put vanilla cream everywhere so everything smells good. And then I’m like, “Grace, we’re going to rig something invisible from the side but that feels like a pillow when he puts his face into it.” And, that’s what we did!,” she told Vulture. “It was so elaborate — it involved Spanx that we cut away and glued down and involved menstrual pads and two of those weird thongs.”

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones

TFW Jason Momoa shows you his modesty sock

While sex between the Mother of Dragons and Khal Drogo was initially not a walk in the park, what happened when the cameras weren’t rolling was a lot more lighthearted, as scene partner Jason Momoa decided to shake things up with his “modesty sock” by using a pink fluffy one instead of the traditional junk covering.

“It’s huge, and it’s pink, and I don’t know what to do!” she told Graham Norton.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Superbad

Christopher Mintz-Plasse had to do his sex scenes in front of his mum.

The famous McLovin was only 17 years old while shooting this crass teen sex comedy, so a parent was required to be on set for his sex scene, which evidently was not fun for either of them.

“She got there, and I had fake sexual intercourse in front of her,” Mintz-Plasse said. “Afterwards we didn’t talk about it; we still don’t speak about that moment.”

Emmy Rossum, Shameless

Emmy Rossum, now well-versed on the use of a ‘vag pad.’

Emmy Rossum drops her clothes on Shameless and gets down and dirty on a pretty regular basis, so they make sure to take precautionary measures to avoid accidentally going from a drama series to a porno.

“We like it to be realistic but not real, but I wear something I call the ‘vag pad’ … it’s kind of a little triangular panty liner that you stick to you,” she told Chelsea Handler.

Robert Pattinson, Maps to the Stars

One peril of the job: Sweating all over Julianne Moore. Picture: Andy Kropa/Invision/AP

Robert Pattinson has never shied away from sex scenes, real as they might get, but things did get a little (uncomfortably) steamy while shooting with Julianne Moore.

“I sweat like a f**king crazy person,” he told Heat Magazine. “I was trying to literally catch drops of sweat to stop them hitting her back! Afterwards she was like ‘Are you having a panic attack?’ It was so embarrassing.”

Jennifer Lawrence, Passengers

Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt in a scene from film Passengers

Despite Jennifer Lawrence’s impressive film resume, she didn’t shoot her first sex scene until sci-fi romance Passengers with Chris Pratt — and she got hammered for it.

“I got really, really drunk. But then that led to more anxiety when I got home, because I was like, ‘What have I done? I don’t know,’” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “And he was married. And it was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach.”

Allison Janney, Life During Wartime

Janney’s sex scene with co-star Michael Lerner (pictured) sent him to the ER.

Janney sent co-star Michael Lerner to the hospital while shooting her first sex scene, but at least they were able to have a laugh.

“We had to have sex up against a wall and they started spraying us with glistening stuff to make us look sweaty, but no one seemed to realise that we were standing on a marble floor,” she said. “They said action and he … pulled me up against the wall and his feet slipped out from under him and he went crashing down on the floor. “It was terrible, but it was one of those moments I’ll never forget.”

This story originally appeared on Decider and is republished here with permission.