There are actually dozens of movies that include unsimulated sex scenes – here are some of them, including the celebrity names involved.
Robert Pattinson – Little Ashes
Believe it or not, Twilight actor Robert Pattinson took part in an unsimulated sex scene back in 2008.
The 39-year-old actor starred in Little Ashes, which was directed by Paul Morrison and saw Pattinson play surrealist painter Salvador Dali. And for one scene, he needed to really look like he was having an orgasm. So, he decided to make it convincing by, ahem, actually having one (yes, really).
In a profile for Germany’s Interview Magazine, the actor previously explained: “I played Salvador Dali and had to do a lot of scenes where I was naked, and I also had to masturbate. I mean really.
“My orgasm face is recorded for eternity.”
When asked why he didn’t simply fake it, he continued: “[It] just doesn’t work, so I pleasured myself in front of the camera.”
Aubrey Plaza – The To-Do List
A similar scene unfolded for Aubrey Plaza’s character Brandy Klark in The To-Do List back in 2013.
The 41-year-old actress explained to Conan O’Brien that when she got to the bit in the script where it said ‘Brandy masturbates,’ shockingly, the director told her to do just that.
She said: “In my head I envisioned a nice scene where you just see my hand slowly go out of frame.
“I thought I was doing one thing and when I showed up it was a whole different thing, it was a full body shot and I asked the director ‘what should I do’ and she said ‘masturbate like it says in the script’.”
Chloë Sevigny and Vincent Gallo – The Brown Bunny
In 2003, Vincent Gallo and Chloë Sevigny, starred opposite each other in the movie The Brown Bunny, which Gallo also directed. The movie follows the story of Bud Clay (Gallo) a motorcycle racer haunted by his past relationship with a woman named Daisy (Sevigny).
In one scene, Sevigny performed unsimulated oral sex on Gallo, with the actor and director bizarrely claiming he ‘drank pineapple juice’ to prepare.
In a 2010 interview with Playboy, she admitted that ‘what’s happened with that is all very complicated’.
She explained: “There are a lot of emotions. I’ll probably have to go to therapy at some point. 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?”
Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg – Antichrist
In the 2009 movie Antichrist, which follows a married couple whose son tragically dies in an accident, there is a graphic NSFW scene that sees Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s characters having sex.
And while, to viewers, it might seem like the actual actors got busy, it’s actually not the case – it was their body doubles.
Dafoe understandably explained at the time: “Charlotte and I are both married and I’m not sure everybody would be cool with that.”
He also told Dazed: “Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that’s all that people would talk about.
“Obviously Lars wants the characters to have genitals but it would become a distraction: ‘Oh, they really had sex!’ If he had asked me to do it, I don’t know what I would have said.”
Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley – 9 Songs
Meanwhile, in 2004’s 9 Songs, lead actors Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley engage in not one but multiple unsimulated sex scenes. The movie follows the story of an intense relationship between a young couple and as we say, included numerous graphic moments.
Speaking to The Guardian back in 2005, O’Brien said: “It wasn’t difficult for me to make and I’m really proud of it.
“Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s a film about two people in a monogamous relationship, having sex as you’d kind of hope that everyone does.
“It’s the age-old cliche: if you don’t want to be offended, don’t see it. But really I can’t believe that people will be offended.”
Lauren Lee Smith – Lie with Me
Lauren Lee Smith also took on some unsimulated sex scenes in the 2005 movie Lie With Me,.
Understandably, she previously revealed that her first reaction upon hearing this would be required was, “Are you kidding?”
But, after finding ‘chemistry’ with her co-star Eric Balfour, the scenes went ahead as planned, as per UNILAD.
Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance – Intimacy
In the 2001 movie Intimacy, Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance participated in an unsimulated sex scene – oral, to be specific. However, Rylance said this film was the ‘most difficult job’ he ever took, largely due to this.
He told The Guardian in 2016: “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 no regrets and previously told The Telegraph: “As for Mark’s regrets about the film, I suppose that’s the point of taking these risks: you don’t really know how you’re going to respond. You can’t control how it will affect your career, but if you don’t take risks you’re destined for a life of boring work,”
Nymphomaniac
The 2013 erotic art film Nymphomaniac on the other hand, featured a digtially-altered unsimulated sex scene.
Producer Louise Vesth told The Hollywood Reporter that it was the body doubles that did actually have sex rather than the actors. The X-rated footage was then digitally imposed over the actors, who didn’t.
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.”
Love
The 2015 movie Love debuted with a World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, but was subsequently banned for its graphic unsimulated sex scenes.
Director Gaspar Noé explained why real sex scenes were filmed for the film, saying: “The good thing about this movie is all the people I proposed to be on-screen knew my previous movies and knew we were doing something valuable, a real movie about a real subject — love — and not something dirty.
“Almost every [male] actor I approached about doing the specific scenes was happy to do it. Men have no issues especially about showing their penis erect.”
Dogtooth
Finally, horror-comedy, Dogtooth, directed by Poor Things creator Yorgos Lanthimos includes an unsimulated sex scene.
The psychological drama follows the lives of a trio of teenagers who are confined to listening to homemade tapes as they spend time at their isolated house by their controlling father hellbent on keeping his children in a stifling state of perpetual childhood by keeping them prisoner.
And according to the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), there was ‘real’ unsimulated sex in the film.