Intimate scenes can be some of the most uncomfortable moments actors have to film, so it’s not unusual for some stars to use humour to break the tension.
Scenes of this kind have been a fixture in film and television for years, but that does not necessarily make them any less awkward, even for performers with plenty of experience. In recent years, productions have also leaned more heavily on intimacy coordinators, modesty garments and other safeguards to help actors get through those moments as comfortably as possible.
Sienna Miller previously spoke about shooting an intimate sequence with her Live By Night co-star Ben Affleck, revealing that the filming process was far from brief.
“nine-hour”
Although Miller said there was no discomfort between the two of them, she admitted that some moments struck her as so funny that she ended up leaving set in tears from laughing.
Another actor who approached the situation with a sense of mischief was Olivia Cooke, who decided to surprise her House of the Dragon co-star Fabien Frankel while they were filming one of their scenes together.
Cooke plays Alicent Hightower in the Game of Thrones prequel, while Frankel appears as Ser Criston Cole. Their characters enter into a sexual relationship during the second season of the HBO series, which has now returned for a third season after HBO confirmed the show would continue through a fourth and final season.
Before the third season premiered in the US on June 21, Cooke appeared on The Claudia Winkleman Show, where she shared the story behind the on-set joke.
“I had to do a sex scene where my scene partner was underneath my skirts. You can imagine what was happening,”
Cooke, 32, then explained the wardrobe and prosthetics involved in filming such scenes.
“We have to wear these sort of padded, sticky jock straps for, you know, obvious reasons. And I said, ‘Can you make me the biggest hairiest merkin? And I want the colour to be fiery red to match my hair.'”
She said the result looked convincing enough to completely catch Frankel off guard.
“It looks incredible,”
Cooke continued describing his response.
“I stuck it on, and the reaction that my cast mate had, Fabien – I was a bit alarmed. I was like, like, ‘Surely you’ve seen pubes before?'”
According to Cooke, Frankel then jumped away in shock, apparently believing the merkin was real.
Once she saw how disturbed he seemed, she quickly felt less pleased with her prank.
“I was like, ‘Oh no, what have I done? What have I done? I thought this was going to be funny.’ But I think he was really stricken with anxiety from that experience.”
It was a joke that clearly did not land quite as she had expected.
Cooke is not the only Olivia to have tried something similar. Olivia Colman once pulled a comparable trick on Emma Stone while they were filming an intimate moment for The Favourite.
During that scene, as Stone has previously described it, her character had to touch Colman intimately, and Colman placed a sponge between her legs for the shot.
Stone, however, was not aware that Colman had deliberately soaked the sponge beforehand, creating an unpleasant surprise mid-scene.
“Her face was a picture,”
Colman later said on The Graham Norton Show.
“She was going up my leg and she went ‘urgh!'”
For some actors, it seems a practical joke is one way of making an awkward scene a little more memorable.