The Untold Truth About Filming Nude Scenes

While some may think that filming sex or nude scenes for a movie must be just as steamy as the real thing, many actors insist that sex scenes are the most challenging or uncomfortable types of scenes to film. Actor John Turturro shared on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that they're less like making love and more like going to the dentist. And unless you're Bill Murray from "Little Shop of Horrors," there is nothing sexy about that.

We're exploring everything you always wanted to know about nudity in movies (but were too afraid to ask), such as what specialized garments actors wear to prevent their genitals from bumping and what happens if an actor gets too excited for real. It turns out that a lot of careful planning must go into every single sequence that involves nudity. Even animated sex scenes are hard work!

Thanks to the accounts of countless actors who have bared it all about baring themselves, we can shed a little light on what happens behind the scenes every time a movie character strips down.

First off, it's worth noting that nude scenes are not necessarily the same as sex scenes. After all, nudity isn't inherently sexual, and there are plenty of movie moments where characters are naked for reasons that have nothing to do with sex, such as the scene with the showering soldiers in "Starship Troopers." For that matter, there are plenty of sexually charged scenes in movies where characters are fully clothed.

The association of nudity and sex is largely thanks to the Hays Code, a set of strict regulations that censored what could be shown in movies between 1934 and 1968. Under the Hays Code, any nudity (even non-sexual nudity) was prohibited, so even after the Hays Code was dissolved, the conservative attitude towards nudity in movies stuck.

But nudity can be used for far more than titillating audiences. In the comedy "No Hard Feelings," for example, Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) goes skinny-dipping and then beats up the teenagers who try to steal her clothes. The sequence is fairly groundbreaking for a mainstream adult comedy because it changes the way we look at nudity. Lawrence's breasts and butt are shown, but not for sex appeal; instead, these only contribute to the slapstick comedy of the scene. Nevertheless, the most notorious nude scenes in cinematic history (and the ones that were the most complicated, awkward, or hilarious to film) involve sex in some way, so we will mostly be examining movie sex scenes.

Let's clear this up right away. The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (aka SAG-AFTRA) make it explicitly clear that actors cannot have sex while filming a sexually explicit scene. Actors should never be expected to film a scene that involves genitalia touching without some kind of physical barrier. This means any time you see movie characters involved in sex, it is actually simulated sex. These sequences are typically supervised by an intimacy coordinator, who is responsible for communicating the needs of the actor during scenes that involve sex and nudity, as well as organizing the shooting of these scenes so that they will not violate an actor's boundaries. An actor will outline those boundaries in a section of their contract called a nudity rider.

To maximize protection during sex scenes, an intimacy coordinator will often provide performers with an object they can place between them as a barrier. They might use a pillow or a vajoga, which is a padded mat designed exactly for this purpose. Meanwhile, "Bridgerton" actor Jonathan Bailey told Radio Times, "It's amazing what you can do with a half-inflated netball."

If actors start to become aroused for real (because that happens sometimes), the crew needs to stop filming right away. "The worst thing you can do is carry on," explained intimacy coordinator David Thackeray in an interview with Backstage. He added, "Give them five minutes. ... Then we come back into it when they're ready."

When it's time to film a nude scene, intimacy coordinators will bring a whole toolbox of garments that actors can use to cover themselves. For one, performers can use pasties to conceal their nipples. Actors will also likely put on a shibue or hibue, which are patches of adhesive fabric meant to be worn as a strapless thong. "We take a shibue, open it up, and put a silicone guard underneath so everyone becomes like a Barbie doll," explained intimacy coordinator Alicia Rodis (via Backstage). When the performers are done shooting, they only need to apply a little baby oil and the garment will peel right off. People with penises may choose instead to use a little drawstring sock.

Sometimes actors will also wear elbow pads or knee pads. This is not particularly sexy, but it is sometimes necessary if the actors need to remain in awkward positions for multiple takes. Naturally, these garments are artfully omitted from the shot.

Intimacy coordinators may provide a performer with a merkin, which is essentially a wig for pubic hair. Alternatively, filmmakers might add the hair digitally in post-production, as cinematographer Seamus McGarvey opted to do for "Fifty Shades of Grey." In an interview with The New York Times, McGarvey shared, "I wouldn't say it was one of the highlights of my career, but it certainly was one of the most surreal scenarios."

Intimacy coordinators are a Hollywood staple now, but before they became commonplace, many performers were expected to violate their boundaries for nude scenes. For example, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider's notorious sex scene from "Last Tango in Paris" was not consensual. Although Brando and Schneider didn't have sex for real, director Bernardo Bertolucci deliberately withheld from Schneider that he wanted Brando to smear butter all over her, claiming that he wanted to capture her genuine humiliated reaction on-camera.

Meanwhile, another actress (who chose to remain anonymous) told Variety Australia about being pressured into doing uncomfortable things because she didn't have an intimacy coordinator protecting her. She recalled being asked to remove her panties during a shower scene, even though the camera would only show her from the waist up.

What's more, in the past Hollywood has placed the burden on actors to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). For instance, Rock Hudson wanted to tell his "Dynasty" co-star Linda Evans that he had HIV, but he was concerned that he might be fired if he announced his diagnosis. (This was, after all, the 1980s.) At the time, doctors were still figuring out how HIV was spread, so Hudson feared that he might transmit the disease to Evans during their kissing scene and felt incredibly guilty. Hoping to protect Evans, Hudson gargled mouthwash before their kiss, and Evans didn't find out until later why he seemed so reluctant to kiss her.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

When it comes to shooting sex scenes, due to the intimate nature of the material, nothing should be left to chance. Jake Gyllenhaal once compared shooting sex scenes to filming a fight sequence: Both needed to be choreographed beat by beat, to make sure they ran smoothly.

Intimacy coordinators must talk with the actors to determine exactly what they feel comfortable doing. According to actress Desiree Akhavan (per Indiewire), intimacy coordinators need to know, "Tongue or no tongue? Where should hands go?" Actors always feel more at ease before a sex scene if they know there will be no surprises. Sometimes actors will practice first with their clothes on. Director John Krokidas explained to Vulture, "If we ... rehearsed it enough times with clothes on, there would be less time having to put two naked men in awkward positions ... that would make the actors feel self-conscious."

The camera crew also needs to rehearse, carefully planning the framing and motion of each shot before they begin shooting. Intimacy coordinators will occasionally use neon green tape on the actors' bodies to mark exactly where the camera is not allowed to go. Sarah Treem, a writer on the show "The Affair," summed it up for The New York Times: "We had to create sex scenes that looked like we weren't trying to cover body parts when we were."

Sometimes actors can film sex scenes without even touching their partners. For instance, "Nymphomaniac" hired real-life porn performers as body doubles for the actors and then used CGI to combine their bodies. Producer Louise Vesth told The Hollywood Reporter, "So above the waist it will be the star and the below the waist it will be the doubles." The actress Stacy Martin explained to MTV, "We would get little black dots on our bodies," adding that her movements were carefully choreographed to match that of her double.

Other filmmakers have found more low-tech solutions. John Turturro recalled on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert filming a sex scene between Kate Winslet and James Gandolfini for the movie "Romance and Cigarettes." Winslet had sprained her ankle, and Turturro realized that the scene simply wasn't working with Winslet trying to straddle Gandolfini. "They were going to be too inhibited," he explained. So instead, he had each of them film their parts separately. Gandolfini had to pretend that Winslet was on top of him, while Winslet bounced on an exercise ball (which was conveniently omitted from the shot). 

Turturro told The New School that Winslet bounced so hard that she fell off the ball at the end of the shot. Still, Turturro wanted audiences to believe the pair were actually in the same room. He explained to Colbert, "So I took Kate's wig, and as James was having sex, I threw Kate's wig in front of the camera," and viewers were none the wiser.

Anytime you see a movie character in the throes of passion, that's clearly acting. However, that doesn't mean that actors won't occasionally become aroused behind the scenes. If they do, the shoot immediately becomes awkward.

"Tudors" star Henry Cavill admitted to Men's Journal that there was one time he didn't need to pretend to be turned on. He recalled filming a scene where an actress was "basically rubbing herself all over me and, um, it got a bit hard. I had to apologize profusely afterward." Meanwhile, Taraji P. Henson told "The Angie Martinez Show" that Terrence Howard got a little excited while filming a sex scene with her. According to Henson, Howard would talk to his "male member" to lighten the mood, saying, "No, don't [do that]. Taraji's going to punch me."

You'd think actors wouldn't get embarrassed about being turned on if they're filming with their real-life partners, like Kyra Sedgwick did with her husband Kevin Bacon for "Pyrates." Yet Sedgwick told Yahoo! that it was actually much harder than filming a sex scene with a stranger, insisting, "It's weird because we're always like, 'Is this real or is it not?'" She added that the situation felt very surreal. "As an actor, you sometimes have these dreams when you start a job where you're sleeping and they're filming you," said Sedgwick. "With 'Pyrates,' I was [sleeping] with my husband and they were filming it! It's like, 'This can't be real — I'm having a dream.'"

You would think that filming a sex scene in stop-motion animation would be easier, since there are no real people involved, and you can make the puppets do whatever you want. In reality, animating a sex scene is just as messy as filming one with live actors. Just look at "Anomalisa," an R-rated stop-motion film that involves full frontal nudity and an extended sex scene. The sequence, which is presented in one continuous shot, from when the couple lies down on the bed until they climax, took roughly two months to prepare and six months to animate.

The filmmakers started with the voiceover performance from actors David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh, which they used as a basis for the sequence. However, the voice work could only help them so much, because for significant sections of the scene, the actors were simply breathing or moaning. That's why the animators carefully choreographed the scene, using live actors for reference where necessary. Producer Rosa Tran explained that the crew needed to hair-punch each hair on the puppets, including in the crotch region. She added that the modeling department even kept a plastic bag full of spare male parts for the puppets.

So much care went into this sequence that, according to director Charlie Kaufman, many viewers said it was more realistic than any live-action sex scene they had ever seen.

Of course, there are still countless actors who choose not to film nude scenes for various reasons. Megan Fox has insisted that she won't film nude scenes anymore now that she's a mother, since she doesn't want her children to see her naked on screen, while Jessica Alba says she has avoided full nudity to avoid having an awkward conversation with her grandparents. Penn Badgley made it a point to limit his sex scenes in the Netflix series "You," explaining that he didn't want to be typecast as the romantic lead; he said he felt that it would be more respectful to his wife if he wasn't constantly expected to film sex scenes.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Isla Fisher pushed for her character to not appear nude in "Wedding Crashers," insisting, "If you see a character's breast, she's no longer funny." Unfortunately, the film's producers wouldn't listen to her; all Fisher could do was arrange to have body doubles in the film's nude scenes. Meanwhile, Mandy Moore shared in the DVD commentary for "Chasing Liberty" that she got a body double for the skinny-dipping scene because the river looked unsanitary.

Even "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker had a clause in her contract stating that she never appear nude on the show, which goes to show that you can star in a series with lots of sex in it without needing to strip down.

It's no secret that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) is notoriously inconsistent when it comes to rating movies. But it's astonishing how wildly their policy toward nudity varies from film to film. For one, male nudity is treated as more shocking than female nudity. While Kate Winslet's nude body is on full display in the PG-13 "Titanic," Michael Fassbender's full-frontal nudity in "Shame" earned the film an NC-17 rating. In fact, the MPA began including the content warning of "male nudity" to accompany its ratings, though all instances of female nudity have been categorized as "nudity" without any gender-specific labels. In the eyes of a straight, cis male audience, a nude woman seems attractive, but a nude man is icky. Yet this assumption doesn't include every member of the audience. 

Aside from revealing a clear double standard (it's okay for kids to look at naked women but not naked men?) and undermining the purported purpose of the rating (since the graphic content warning may tell hormonal teenagers exactly what they want to know), this policy also suggests a bias against queer couples.

In one of the few ways the MPA has behaved consistently, the organization has shown a tendency to give stricter ratings to movies with LGBTQ+ characters, regardless of the film's actual content. For instance, the film "Love Is Strange," which features a middle-aged gay couple, received an R rating, despite having no sex or nudity.

COVID-19 changed the film industry forever, so naturally filmmakers needed to change the way they filmed nude scenes and sex scenes. Some studios used editing tricks to make it seem like two actors were embracing, even though the two actors weren't even in the same room together. Others arranged for the actors to film their sex scenes with romantic partners in real life to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19. 

For actors who felt comfortable being within 6 feet of their co-star but were wary of kissing them on the lips, intimacy coordinators found other creative ways to evoke the same feeling, such as having the actor kiss the back of their co-star's neck. For scenes where it wouldn't have been safe for two actors to have such close contact, shows such as "The Bold and the Beautiful" replaced them with lifelike inflatable dolls. Piers Wenger from BBC Drama even proposed the idea that actors would kiss each other with a sheet of Perspex between them.

When all else failed, filmmakers needed to make do without any sex or nudity. To compensate for this, the creators of "Riverdale" substituted actual sex scenes with flirty dialogue loaded with innuendos. "Dynasty" showrunner Josh Reims told The New York Times, "The joke among the writers ... is that we will watch two characters say they want to have sex and then cut to them saying, 'That was some great sex.'"

Some filmmakers took inspiration for sex and nude scenes from real life. For example, "Magic Mike" costume designer Christopher Peterson said he frequented a lot of male strip clubs for research. Peterson told The Ringer that these visits taught him how to design tear-away clothes. Meanwhile, "Anomalisa" puppet supervisor Caroline Kastelic went the extra mile to make sure the main character had a realistic and age-appropriate penis. "I had to do an Internet search of 'old man genitalia,'" she told Complex. "I remember that day and being like 'No, no, no, I don't want to do this.'"

For the film "American Psycho," in which Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) regularly solicits sex workers and films himself having intercourse with them, pornography was crucial to the research process. Bateman doesn't understand much about relationships, so Bale decided that his character would've learned about sex by watching porn and then trying to imitate it. "He got one of the [production assistants] to get us a couple of videos and we both took notes," director Mary Harron told Vulture. She said Bale shared what he learned from his research by drawing stick figures in various obscene positions. According to Harron, "There was one where two girls were giving Bateman a blow job at once. We were laughing, thinking, That's ridiculous and it doesn't make logistical sense, but we'll do it anyway."

Intimacy coordinator Ita O'Brien faced a challenge working on "Sex Education." She had to describe particular sex moves without being too graphic or personal, and she said she found the perfect solution: watch animals having sex. To communicate her ideas to the cast members, O'Brien said she compiled clips of animal mating rituals. Mating techniques vary wildly across the animal kingdom; for instance, a bonobo will make love very differently from an elephant seal. Once O'Brien had created a library of mating animals, she said, she asked the actors to study them. These visual references could be used as a shorthand, so that the cast and crew could discuss choreography and the overall feel of a particular sex scene and be on the same page. Each character would have their own approach associated with a certain animal, though sometimes the style and rhythm of the sex might transform over the course of a scene. "Maybe we start with a slug and then turn into a gorilla and finish off with the bonobo," O'Brien told HuffPost.

"Sex Education" director Kate Herron admitted in the same interview that her conversations with the actors might sound strange out of context. For instance, she might say something like, "Yes when you did that final big shudder as the seal climaxing it was magical," which is not exactly what the kind of feedback Herron expected to be giving when she first entered the film industry.

Shooting a nude scene can often be awkward and anxiety-inducing. Luckily, actors and directors know some tricks to make sure everyone involved feels at ease. Speaking on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," actor and director John Turturro said, "Really, you try to make your partner feel comfortable. ... I ask them to put the music on sometimes. Sometimes you have a drink, you know?"

Actors may also fall back on humor to break the ice. Michael Fassbender told Vulture, "You tell jokes on set and try to make things as relaxed as possible," insisting that this was crucial for getting the awkwardness out of the way. Meanwhile, Jamie Dornan told "The Graham Norton Show" that he enjoyed making his "Fifty Shades of Gray" co-star Dakota Johnson laugh during sex scenes. Dornan shared that sometimes, when his character was about to climax, he would undercut it with comedy by imitating the triumphant melody you might hear coming from a ballpark organ.

Director Paul Verhoeven was willing to go to great lengths to ensure the cast of "Starship Troopers" felt comfortable stripping for the film's famous shower scene. "One cast member said they would only get naked if we did," Verhoeven recalled in an interview with Empire. "Well ... I have no problem with taking my clothes off, so we did." Turturro also emphasized that being friendly with the crew makes actors more comfortable taking their clothes off.

Some actors may be shy about nude scenes, but you'd be surprised how many are willing to show more than the script originally requires. In "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," Jason Segel didn't need to stand naked for the scene where his character's girlfriend (Kristen Bell) breaks up with him. But he felt it would be truer to his own experiences with breakups if his character was vulnerable in more ways than one. Segel proposed that his character should be stepping out of the shower, and he committed to this nude scene completely. Kristen Bell recalled in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that when the filming was done, she needed to remind Segel, "You can put your pants on now."

Meanwhile, C. Thomas Howell was originally going to wear a prosthetic penis for a scene from "Obliterated." Yet right before shooting, Howell announced, "You know what, brother? If I'm gonna do this, I'm going for it. I just want to go all out," according to producer Jon Hurwitz (per ComicBook). To accommodate this last-minute change, the filmmakers needed to revise the language of Howell's nudity rider to say he was willing to do full-frontal nudity. Too bad this nude scene came at a huge cost. The show's makeup team had already committed $10,000 to design a prosthetic penis for Howell, so that meant their efforts had been wasted.

A common misconception when intimacy coordinators were introduced to film sets was that they only got in the director's way. On the contrary, they can be a huge help to directors. "It is really the director's show, and I am there to help support their vision," intimacy coordinator Jessica Steinrock told Consequence. Steinrock is the CEO of Intimacy Directors and Coordinators and has worked on "Animal Kingdom" and "Little Fires Everywhere."

Another intimacy coordinator, Miriam Lucia, who worked on "House of the Dragon," explained to Deadline, "It's about understanding what it is the director wants from the scene but sometimes being able to intervene and relay that an actor isn't comfortable with that line of thought so that the director has time to rethink it before they get on set." After all, addressing these concerns in advance will prevent filmmakers from wasting time and money on additional takes or reshoots — not to mention the risk of potential lawsuits if an actor feels violated. Lucia argued that the notion that intimacy coordinators eliminate spontaneity is ridiculous, insisting that nothing actors do is completely spontaneous; actors must read the script, discuss it with the director, and get into character. Why should nude scenes be any different?

Ita O'Brien told The Hollywood Reporter that once she establishes clear boundaries, "it means the actors are free to then act." Once the actors know exactly where they can and cannot touch, they can focus on their performance, and perhaps even improvise a little within those established boundaries.

Although many actors are relieved that intimacy coordinators are now a mainstay in Hollywood, there are a handful of performers who wouldn't personally want to have one present during a nude scene. Jennifer Aniston told Variety that she didn't want an intimacy coordinator, insisting, "Please, this is awkward enough!" Aniston shared that she felt totally at ease shooting a nude scene with director Mimi Leder and co-star Jon Hamm. "Having Mimi there, you're protected," she argued. "I never felt uncomfortable. Jon was such a gentleman."

Likewise, Toni Collette declined the offer of an intimacy coordinator. In an interview with the times, she told The Times, "It just felt like those people who were brought in to make me feel more at ease were actually making me feel more anxious. They weren't helping, so I asked them to leave." Collette said the intimacy coordinators were very understanding and respected her wishes. The actress explained to Variety, "If I'd been with other people where I didn't feel as comfortable, I probably would have welcomed her there," but since she trusted the director and the crew, she was fine without an intimacy coordinator. Of course, Colette acknowledged that it's important to have intimacy coordinators available just in case, calling them a "safety net" for actors.

For much of the 20th century, male nudity in movies was only socially acceptable as a punchline. Flaccid penises were largely played for laughs. Sure, there were exceptions, such as "Bad Lieutenant" and "Boogie Nights," but the general rule of thumb was that filmmakers assumed nobody wanted to see a penis.

Thanks to the MPA's inconsistent rating system, filmmakers could show plenty of breasts in an R-rated movie but never an erect penis. However, the rise of cable TV channels like HBO — which fell outside the jurisdiction of the MPA – gave creatives more freedom with nudity. Despite this, many shows simply seized the opportunity to supply the audience with more boobs, without showing equivalent levels of male nudity. Nearly 75% of the nudity in "Game of Thrones" is of female characters. So it's no wonder that Damon Lindelof, showrunner of the HBO series "The Leftovers," told TV Line, "If you're going to do a show on HBO, which is one of the few places where you can do full frontal nudity, there's no excuse not to show more dongs."

While male nudity became much more visible on TV during the 2010s, most of this nudity was associated with either sex or violence. It would take shows like "Euphoria," with its famous locker room scene, to remind viewers that sometimes the male body doesn't need to be about sex or violence — it simply is.

Peter Lehman, author of "Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body," observed in an article for The Conversation that prosthetic penises are commonplace in Hollywood, though this wasn't always the norm. J.K. Simmons didn't use prosthetics when he shot nude scenes for "Oz," a 1997 HBO series that ushered in an era of more male nudity on TV. Likewise, Steve Zahn told The Wrap, "I come from the old school where we were actually naked when we were naked." According to Lehman, it wasn't until the 2010 show "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" that the prosthetic penis began to rise in popularity. Now there are countless actors who have used prosthetics for their nude scenes.

It's easy to see why actors find prosthetics so appealing. "Hillbilly Elegy" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" makeup artist Matthew W. Mungle told "This Morning," "Once the penis goes on ... then they don't have to worry about that, and they can concentrate on acting." Still, there is some debate about whether the increase in prosthetics has actually helped gender equality in Hollywood. Ita O'Brien told Thrillist that thanks to prosthetics, more actors are willing to go nude, which in turn increases the number of shows that normalize male nudity. On the other hand, Lehman argues in The Conversation that it does little to level the playing field if men aren't expected to show their real genitalia — a luxury rarely afforded to women who show their breasts on the big screen.

Great care is taken in designing the look of a prosthetic penis. "If I'm honest, it's always a little humorous," makeup artist Doniella Davy, who has worked on "Euphoria" and Amazon's "The Underground Railroad," told Thrillist. According to Davy, "[My fellow makeup artist Jason Collins will] send me pics, and I'll respond back with 'more squishy and floppy' or 'can you put more fake hair on the balls?'"

Matthew W. Mungle shared in an interview with "This Morning" that he doesn't typically need to collect a mold of the actor's private parts. Instead, he will usually sculpt the mold himself or use one of his stock molds from previous projects. A single prosthetic can cost anywhere from $850 to $2,500. Some fake penises are attached with a special glue; these can only be used once. For wider shots (where viewers are more likely to overlook such a fine detail), actors might use a strap-on and then have the straps edited out in post-production. Actors may need to wear this special piece for as long as 14 hours at a time.

No matter how realistic these fake penises may be, makeup artists may still need to add finishing touches — sometimes even while the actor is wearing it. "Minx" makeup artist Carleigh Herbert recalled to The New York Times, "I got on my knees to powder penises. ... It just was kind of part of the process."

Although shooting a scene where a character gives birth may not even involve any nudity, it's still a very intimate moment. Depending on the needs of the scene and what the actor feels comfortable with, an intimacy coordinator might also be present for when a character is giving birth. Miriam Lucia told Deadline that "House of the Dragon" star Sian Brooke asked her to serve as an intimacy coordinator for a scene where her character is in labor. According to Lucia, "Brooke ... felt that my presence made her feel more comfortable, so I was there." With the help of Lucia, Brooke advocated for no nudity in her childbirth scene.

When there is nudity involved, actors will often use prosthetics. Intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey, who worked on "Outlander" and "Good Omens," confirmed that when Lauren Lyle filmed a scene "Outlander" where her character, Marsali, gives birth, Lyle wore not only a prosthetic belly but also prosthetic breasts. In an interview with TV Line, Coffey explained, "Obviously with Lauren's breasts, her breasts wouldn't look pregnant in the way Marsali's should. The nipple changes quite a lot when you're pregnant, especially in that state of pregnancy."

Meanwhile, the birth scene from "Children of Men" replaced the entire lower body of Clare-Hope Ashitey with a prosthetic rig, according to one behind-the-scenes featurette. Reaching between the two prosthetic legs, Ashitey's co-star Clive Owen pulled out a baby-shaped prop, and then a CGI baby was layered on top of it.

Intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot, who has worked on "Bridgerton" and "Madame Web," argues masturbation scenes are more challenging than your standard sex scenes. "It's so much harder when you're working solo," she told Business Insider. At least when you're shooting with another actor, she explained, "You've got someone to bounce ideas off of or experiment with, you can work together." Talbot emphasized that with masturbation scenes, it's extra important to know where the actor ends and the character begins. Intimacy coordinators will ask the actor to focus on how the character would pleasure themselves, without bringing the actor's own intimate life into play.

Yet despite these efforts, sometimes actors will still feel exposed. "Dirty Lines" actress Joy Delima said filming masturbation scenes could be terrifying. "Everything I act is fake," she said in an interview at International Film Festival Rotterdam (via ScreenDaily), "but when it came down to intimate scenes, it felt now everyone knows how I look when I orgasm."

"Bridgerton" star Phoebe Dynevor told Glamour, "It's a difficult thing to rehearse, which means you don't. You just do it." Dynevor added that she was glad she had an intimacy coordinator for those particular scenes, saying, "No one wants to be told how to perform orgasm [on set] by a man."

Yes, Episode 2 of "Pam & Tommy" features a talking penis, and while some fans feel like this moment went too far, it's certainly a creative way to approach a nude scene. This surreal sequence was achieved with a puppet. Showrunner Rob Siegel told Entertainment Weekly, "From the start, we always wanted it to be an animatronic d**k." He said that he enjoys using practical effects, adding, "I can't think of a more fun and cuddly way to get away with extended full-frontal male nudity. It's a puppet, it's like Yoda."

According to Thrillist, the production team collected a mold of Sebastian Stan's penis and used it to create a silicone puppet. Once the prosthetic was finished, the makeup teams attached it with glue and then painted delicate details on top of it. Showrunner D.V. DeVincentis explained to Entertainment Weekly, "There were wires running between his legs from behind, and a guy crouched on the floor with joy sticks, mechanically controlling what's going on." To give Stan something to respond to, the puppeteers supplied some of the puppet's dialogue.

The show's creators considered adding CGI to make the penis more realistic, but they ultimately chose to use minimal CGI and keep all the imperfections, because a puppet penis is far more charming.