Andrew Scott lifted the lid on what directors sometimes ask of actors while they are in the middle of filming a sex scene at an event in London on Friday.
Speaking at a cinema screening of his Netflix series Ripley, the actor, 47, gave a glimpse into the off-camera directions given as raunchy scenes are shot.
Andrew spoke about being asked to ‘pick up the pace’ while in the middle of the act and shared his feelings on how ’embarrassing’ he finds filming sex scenes.
‘”Pick up the pace, pick up the pace,” literally that is the kind of notes you get,’ he told radio presenter Edith Bowman at an Everyman Soundtracking event.
The Fleabag star also spoke of how sometimes actors need to re-record the audio for scenes months after the fact if a noise has interrupted the original sound – and the added awkwardness when those scenes are racy.
Andrew Scott lifted the lid on what directors sometimes ask of actors while they are in the middle of filming a sex scene at an event in London on Friday
Speaking at a cinema screening of his Netflix series Ripley, the actor, 47, gave a glimpse into the off-camera directions given as raunchy scenes are shot (Pictured in All Of Us Strangers with Paul Mescal)
He said: ‘Then you go in and the first thing you see is a screen grab and you’re like “Urgh” then they make you re-record something that it’s, you know, if we were to re-record what we just said, the idiosyncratic way that people speak. How do I do that?
‘The worst thing that you have you ever have to do is if you’ve done a sex scene, because it’s, you know, embarrassing enough.’
Andrew then said it can be especially awkward to replicate the necessary sounds for a sex scene ‘in your clothes in November, seven months later with 12 people in a booth and someone is like “Any snacks?”‘.
The Sherlock actor’s most recent sex scenes came in the award-winning All Of Us Strangers, where he played opposite Normal People star Paul Mescal.
In January, Andrew admitted that he barely rehearsed his raunchy sex scenes with Paul while working with an intimacy coordinator for the role.
The actor was widely praised for his portrayal of a lonely screenwriter who encounters the spirits of his dead parents in director Andrew Haigh’s latest film, an adaptation of Japanese author Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, Strangers.
But while an explicit sexual encounter with Harry, played by Irish heartthrob Paul, 28, dominated the commentary surrounding its release, Scott insisted at the time that they both adopted an organic approach towards its development.
Speaking to Attitude, Andrew also credited the film’s intimacy coordinator for mediating any concerns regarding the graphic nature of their sex scene.
Andrew spoke about being asked to ‘pick up the pace’ while in the middle of the act and shared his feelings on how ’embarrassing’ he finds filming sex scenes (Pictured in May)
The Fleabag star also spoke of how sometimes actors need to re-record the audio for scenes months after the fact if a noise has interrupted the original sound – and the added awkwardness when those scenes were racy (Pictured with Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag)
Andrew said it can be especially awkward to replicate the necessary sounds for a sex scene ‘in your clothes in November, seven months later with 12 people in a booth and someone is like “Any snacks?”‘ (Pictured in May)
‘Sex is just communication, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s just physical communication rather than verbal communication… We didn’t over rehearse it. We knew that those scenes, particularly the early ones, had to have a sort of frisson.
‘And we had an intimacy coordinator, which can be very helpful for the simple reason that if you’re able to talk to somebody about your fears or what you want to show, what you don’t want to show, or what you think it should be and what the narrative of the storyline is, you have that base of safety.
‘But chemistry is a really interesting thing. You’re basically just listening to see what the other person is doing physically in the same way you would in a dialogue scene.
‘And you can talk about that as much as you like, but until you’re actually there, it’s not alive in that way, so it’s just about listening, but just listening with your body, basically.’
Andrew added that he feels that being a gay man in the modern age is a ‘wonderful gift’ that has helped him establish firm friendships.
The Sherlock actor’s most recent sex scenes came in the award-winning All Of Us Strangers, where he played opposite Normal People star Paul Mescal (pictured)
He said: ‘I think it’s such a wonderful thing to me. It’s an extraordinary gift to my life and just to be able to see the real beauty in being gay is completely wonderful.
‘The older I get, just the more I feel so lucky to have been born gay and that pervades my life in the sense of all my friendships. I have so many amazing queer friends in my life now that I just adore.’
He added: ‘I feel such a huge sense of camaraderie with other queer people now, and without sounding too hippy about it, I feel like I just want to spread that love and positivity in our community because we’ve come such a long way and it’s important that we are kind and look out for each other, and celebrate how uniquely different and how f***ing wonderful that can be.’