Cinema is an art form capable of telling stories that can entertain, reflect, and inspire -- but let's face it, 100 percent of us have sat through a whole movie just on the off chance that there would be even a brief glimpse of nudity. (If you have HBO, make that "a whole TV series.")
But the truth is, shooting even the steamiest sex scene is secretly as awful and uncomfortable as, well, sex in real life. And then you have famously erotic moments that took the behind-the-scenes awkwardness to a whole new level, like in ...
#4
The Wolf Of Wall Street: Margot Robbie's Sex Scene Left Her Covered In Paper Cuts
Margot Robbie got to live out the fantasies of every '90s teenager who wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to draw them like his French girls when she appeared in The Wolf Of Wall Street, where she shared a number of pretty steamy scenes with him. The movie tells the story of Wall Street huckster Jordan Belfort -- which, frankly, works better when viewed as an Inception sequel in which DiCaprio seriously abuses those dream-entering powers.
After firing his whole thief crew and getting a far better one.
Naturally, there's a lot of sex in the movie, mostly between Belfort and his wife (played by Robbie). At one point they even do it on top of a huge pile of money, because a scene where they copulate on a bed full of electric bills and soiled pizza boxes would be too depressingly familiar for most of us.
Behind the scenes, though, things were decidedly unsexy. Sure, life could be worse than being paid to simulate sex with an Oscar-winner and former Growing Pains cast member (as long as his name doesn't contain the words "Kirk" or "Cameron"). It obviously wasn't too bad a deal for Leo either. But for Robbie, the scene had an unintended consequence -- when she got up to get dressed, the crew gasped because her back, they said, was covered in "a thousand red scratches," as if she'd been whipped. Or like she'd been having sex on top of a pack of rabid cats, we guess.
It seems that, while it may look cool (and might be some kind of complex allegory for America), sex on top of money is super unpractical, as it leaves you with more paper cuts than a bloodthirsty Kinko's employee. Robbie definitely didn't recommend it; even the back seat of an antique car on a doomed steamship sounds more comfortable. We should note that, in the interest of journalistic accuracy, we carefully examined every available photo of Robbie taken thereafter and couldn't find any permanent scars, so there's that.
Behind the scenes, though, things were decidedly unsexy. Sure, life could be worse than being paid to simulate sex with an Oscar-winner and former Growing Pains cast member (as long as his name doesn't contain the words "Kirk" or "Cameron"). It obviously wasn't too bad a deal for Leo either. But for Robbie, the scene had an unintended consequence -- when she got up to get dressed, the crew gasped because her back, they said, was covered in "a thousand red scratches," as if she'd been whipped. Or like she'd been having sex on top of a pack of rabid cats, we guess.
It seems that, while it may look cool (and might be some kind of complex allegory for America), sex on top of money is super unpractical, as it leaves you with more paper cuts than a bloodthirsty Kinko's employee. Robbie definitely didn't recommend it; even the back seat of an antique car on a doomed steamship sounds more comfortable. We should note that, in the interest of journalistic accuracy, we carefully examined every available photo of Robbie taken thereafter and couldn't find any permanent scars, so there's that.
#3
Last Tango In Paris: Brando Couldn't Remember His Lines, Wanted To Write Them On His Co-Star's Butt
Last Tango In Paris is the story of a recently widowed man (played by Marlon Brando) having loads of anonymous sex with a young woman in 1970s Paris. It was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and, we're guessing, paid for by the Paris Tourism Board.
United Artists
If Paris hadn't bid highest, this could have been called Last Tango In Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
But despite its groundbreaking, NC-17-rated portrayal of raw sexuality driven by existential grief, things were pretty goddamn silly behind the scenes. This was mainly due to Brando, who was transitioning from his status as the devastatingly handsome greatest actor alive to the lunatic who refused to wear pants and demanded a dwarf sidekick. We've talked before about how this acting legend couldn't be arsed to learn his lines and relied on cue cards, famously reading his Superman dialogue off of baby Kal-El's diaper.
Well, according to various biographies, Last Tango In Paris was no exception. Brando found dumber and dumber ways to hide his lines, like the time he scribbled some dialogue down on the sole of his shoe, which must have required some rather elaborate positioning to read (then again, it's a sex movie). Another scene found him gazing to the heavens over his wife's dead body -- but even that poignant moment hailed by critics was him reading off some cards hidden on a far wall. It's hilariously obvious when you know what's going on.
United Artists
"Even if a husband lives 200 fucking years, he's never going to be able to discover his wife's real nature. Wet paint. Do not touch."
Oddest of all, with so many love scenes leaving no garments to hide cue cards, Brando came up with the suggestion of writing his prompts on Maria Schneider's rear. Bertolucci said no, but it's still disturbing to learn that Brando wanted to use his young female co-star's butt as his personal butt-shaped teleprompter.
For those wondering if at least the filmmaker behind the picture wasn't also crazy: He was quoted as saying that the actors and actresses making the movie were the "prolongation of my penis" and, "Like Pinocchio's nose, my penis grows." So, yup, this Oscar-nominated flick was made by a guy who needed script prompts from an ass and a director who subscribed to the most dubious penile enlargement method ever.
#2
Basic Instinct: The Director Tricked Sharon Stone Into Exposing Herself
The early-'90s thriller Basic Instinct is remembered less as a movie and more as an endurance test for the pause buttons of Blockbuster's perviest patrons. In the most famous scene, Sharon Stone's character (an accused killer) is grilled by the police and, instead of the good cop/bad cop routine, they employ the little-known tactic of lighting the interrogation room like an underwater Abercrombie & Fitch and staring at her like she's 3D puzzle art.
Why does this interrogation room have nicer chairs than most presidential palaces?
Of course, we all know what happens next: She crosses her legs and isn't wearing any underwear -- either because she forgot to put on undies while she was busy murdering people or this is a shameless, throwaway bit of nudity. Still, it's an intensely erotic scene ... that also keeps cutting to fucking Newman from Seinfeld, making one wonder if this whole movie isn't just some kind of academic project researching boner confusion.
To be fair, every '90s movie was legally required to hire this guy.
Anyway, while a lot of us were surprised to see Stone's vagina in a movie, so was Stone. According to her, she was talked into going commando because otherwise the white of her panties would be visible in the shot, but her character's nudity was supposed to be communicated through "innuendo." She specifically told the director, Paul Verhoeven, she didn't want to actually reveal anything on camera. She said, "And he's like, 'No, no you're not going to.' So I gave him the underwear, put them in the pocket of his shirt." The director put her underwear in the pocket of his shirt? That's not a film production; that's an American Apparel shoot gone ... well, alarmingly routine.
Even shittier, no one bothered to inform Stone that her scene had been turned into the cinematic equivalent of a sex offender's iPhone until she was watching it on the big screen with a crowd of people that almost certainly weren't all doctors. Adding to the sleaze-factor, Verhoeven claimed he was taking "revenge" on Stone for not doing nudity in Total Recall. Thankfully, Stone barged into the projection booth and slapped Verhoeven in his lying face -- something the movie-going public would all want to do only a few years later.
#1
Masters Of Sex: Michael Sheen Was Vomiting Between Takes
Masters Of Sex is the Showtime program about Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson, pioneers in the field of the academic study of getting busy. It stars Lizzy Caplan and Michael Sheen, whom we're guessing is the actor Martin Sheen tells people is actually his son.
It looks feasible.
The show tells the story of the real-life Dr. Masters (who for some reason didn't change his name to Dr. Phd after attaining his degree) and the research assistant who eventually becomes his partner and wife. Since having a show about Masters without sex would be like making Breaking Bad with no meth or The Walking Dead without petty squabbling, there's understandably a lot of doing it. One key moment in the show comes when the two partners rub their naughty bits against one another under the guise of furthering their research.
Filming the scene, though, was less erotic and more "morning after your 21st birthday" shitty. For starters, Caplan says, as they approached the moment when Sheen had to touch her breast, she noticed he looked "bad" and his hands were shaky and "clammy."
"I'm just such a big fan of you. 'Hot N Cold' and 'California Girls' meant a lot to me."
This actually helped Caplan feel better about her own nervousness ... until Sheen released her boob and immediately walked over to a garbage can and puked. Unbeknownst to Caplan, Sheen was suffering from food poisoning. After finding out that she wasn't the cause of his abject nausea, Caplan and Sheen got through the scene, proving that you can eat discount seafood the night before filming a love scene and still perform adequately enough.
