For even seasoned performers, making a movie that features real-looking, unsimulated sex would be intimidating. But for several actors involved in 2013’s Nymphomaniac, some moments on set went beyond challenging and felt genuinely “humiliating”.
Lars von Trier’s two-part erotic drama sparked debate on release, thanks to explicit scenes that show members of its well-known cast nude and apparently engaging in sexual activity.
Over time, Nymphomaniac Part 1 and Part 2 have built a cult following. Many viewers who recommend the films add the same advice: it’s the kind of watch you may prefer to do alone, given how frequently graphic sex and nudity appear.
The productions also drew in major talent—Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Jean-Marc Barr, Connie Nielsen, and Mia Goth—though not everyone found the work empowering, and some described the experience as degrading.
Gainsbourg, who plays the central character, spoke to Vanity Fair in 2014 about how difficult it was to undress on camera and perform intensely sexual material. She said: “I think, just in regards to the sexual things, the fellatio was hardest.”
She explained the discomfort came from how personal the act felt, saying it was ‘it’s very intimate, and there was something quite humiliating about the whole thing.’
Gainsbourg also noted that what appears on screen wasn’t filmed with her performing oral sex on a real penis, as Von Trier used porn performers as body doubles for the most explicit sequences across the two films.
Other cast members have also discussed what they found difficult during production. Interestingly, some suggested the environment could be easier for the women than the men, depending on the role and how it was written.
Skarsgård, a frequent collaborator of the director, told the magazine that ‘the actresses usually love to work with [Von Trier],’ pointing to the depth and quality of the female characters.
Still, Gainsbourg said one of the moments that pushed her furthest came away from the main shoot, when she was asked to take part in promotional materials.
She recalled doing a poster photoshoot tied to the tagline ‘show us your “O” face’. While she felt protected when performing sexual material in the context of Von Trier’s direction, she found it far less comfortable doing so for someone else behind the camera.
“The photographer was very sweet,” she said, “but he wasn’t Lars, and to go that far, just pretending an orgasm, without Lars, was suddenly awkward.”
According to both leads, however, the biggest challenge wasn’t the nudity or the staged orgasms at all—it was the scale of the dialogue they were expected to deliver.
Skarsgård said Von Trier is often praised for writing standout parts for women, but that he’d been assured this time the male role would be exceptional too. “He promised me that this one would be the best male role he’s ever written.
“And I said to him, ‘Well, that doesn’t mean much, you know,’” he recalled, adding that once the script arrived, the part was almost intimidatingly dense.
“Me and Charlotte had about 90 pages of text,” Skarsgård said. “It’s so much dialogue, it was really hard.”