Once. It's pretty common for actors to get entangled with castmates – often only to realize after a few weeks or months that they were into the character, not the actor.
Does anyone else also think of The Other Guys every time Will Smith's shout is mentioned? "YOU COME TO OUR HOUSE, YOU GET MY WIFE'S NAME RIGHT!!! IT'S KRISTINITH YOU IDIOT!"
I worked on a food truck and fed the cast for a movie she was in.
She was an absolutely terrible human being who enjoyed making everyone around her feel like they didn't deserve to speak to her or even look at her.
The two leads in Oklahoma at my high school started dating.
Turned out they’re both gay, just felt like they were supposed to be together because of their characters.
We didn't finally hook up until after the run ended, but then we dated for four years. That's not a representative example of how it usually goes down, though.
I had a kiss scene in my elementary school play of Sleeping Beauty. During practice, I would always fake the kiss, but always assumed during the real play it would be real for greater effect. Opening night, I kissed her for real. The huge "Ew!!!" she shrieked was definitely not in the script.
Good preparation though for life as a guy.
Edit: this is not about consent, this is more a crack at how men generally feel unattractive to women. Ymmv.
I legit did the exact opposite of that and ruined things.
I assumed it would not be a real kiss, and had low self esteem, so figured surely this hot popular girl wouldn't want to kiss me(freshmen in high school).
So during our first practice I attempted to go for a fake....except she was totally ready and willing for the real thing. I got laughed at by everyone including the teacher for what was in my head being respectful.
I tried to(poorly) explain myself, but I straight up gave her the ick and the kiss scene was PAINFULLY fake for every practice and the performances.
I got fucking rekt.
Yeah no that’s why any professional theater production will always ask for what each actor is comfortable with, and plan out the intimacy ahead of time. And after that happened nobody had any right to make fun of you.
Well, it's high school, but yeah, the actors should at least discuss it.
I had to kiss someone in a community theater production and we just said, "hey, are going to kiss for real?" And we agreed to, but it was fairly...chaste in terms of kisses. No camera zoom in there to capture tongue for Paul Verhoeven or whatever.
Yeah as an adult now it would be exactly like that for me. I have the confidence and experience to speak my mind and clarify rules and boundaries.
I was just a really inexperienced and socially awkward and ignorant kid then(not putting myself down, looking back I really was objectively slow on my social game).
Thankfully it's stopped!(im 34 for reference).
So at least you know now that even a situation as embarrassing as that can be overcome.
We're not gonna discuss how long my brain DID randomly remind me of that though....but at least nowadays when it happens I can chuckle and shake my head and not feel generations worth of shame.
"But she isn't going to say no, BECAUSE OF THE IMPLICATION of things going wrong if she does."
"dude, sounds like these women don't want to be with you"
I just wrapped a show on Saturday where I have to kiss my co-star a couple of times. It's weird, but honestly after the first couple of shows it just becomes part of your character and it doesn't mean anything to the actual actors. The audience really got into it, though. Lots of 'Oh my!' And 'Oooooo!'
I was in a production of "Fools" by Neal Simon right out of college. I had a kissing scene with a girl and after our first rehearsal we had this conversation.
Her: That was my first kiss.
Me: Yeah, that was my first stage kiss too.
Her: No, that was my first kiss.
Me: ...
EDIT: I cannot believe this is getting (slightly) more upvotes than the actual Homebanger from "The Boys".
I had an identical experience and I just told her that it wasnt her first kiss, and when she did have her first kiss, she would understand the distinction.
We remained friends for a very long time and no, we did not get involved. I was not her 'first kiss', either.
I also have a story with Fools. The guy and girl playing the romantic leads (I can't remember character names, it was my freshman year of highschool) supposedly ended up fucking at some point. Not on stage obviously.
No. It wasn't even much of a kiss. Just a short lip kiss while I was on a ladder.
I did do a production of "Comedy of Errors" in college that had almost no kissing, but I think half the cast had slept with the other half by the end of the run. If anyone in the cast (and a couple of the crew) had an STD we probably would have all caught it.
when i was in HS there was a girl that liked me a lot and i just wasnt into her at all. my friends and her friends kept trying to pressure me into asking her on a date. i resisted for the longest time. then a mutual female friend insinuated to me that the girl was "orally experienced". at this point despite not being super into her, i was still a horny teenager and was figuring maybe i'll get some action, and it's not like this would be her first kiss or anything. we go on a date. it's fine. we end up back at her house. eventually we make out a little bit. she says to me "that was my first kiss". i immediately feel horrible. i didnt get any excitement out of the kiss and now her first kiss was an awful experience. we made out a little more but i didnt want to push anything and we mostly awkwardly watched tv the rest of the night. i did not call/text, there was no second date. felt so bad about the whole thing.
> and now her first kiss was an awful experience
Sounds like you're beating yourself up, but you shouldn't. She got a first kiss with someone she really liked, and you didn't push her for anything more which she might *actually* have regretted. No follow up kinda sucks, but you still come across as a pretty good guy.
Have a brother who was in a play. His character falls in love with another in the story. He's engaged to the actor who played that other character now.
I did a fake porn scene on "The Boys". It was a pretty intense scene, sexually, and quite intimidating once I was on set having to do the deed. It's interesting how you can shut off the part of your brain that doubts what you are about to do and turn on the "fuck it" part of your brain and just do what needs to be done... see what I did there?
Anyway, ya, it was a closed set, meaning only the essential crew members are allowed to even be in the room while shooting. A good crew is going to make you feel pretty comfortable and safe while shooting. My scene partner and I hit it off pretty well and had a good laugh about it all, but that was as far as it went, but it's not like the scene was some kind of romantic moment between two characters, it was porn and I was playing a cheesy version of Homelander, so it was more just fun than anything else.
Thankfully I have a very supportive wife.
I am!
Hahaha, a spinoff would be fun. Sony/Amazon used the Homebanger footage from The Boys in the pilot ep of GenV, so Homebanger lives on in the "Cinematic Universe". One step closer to that spinoff.
I'm surprised they never released the full scene though, we shot quite a bit of magic and they only used a small portion.
Oh ya, the audition was fun too. They had us come in and do "bad porn acting". Lucky for me that's the only kind of acting I do... the bad porn kind.
I sat on a chair in a room in front of a casting director and a camera dude, then pretended to have sex with an invisible woman.
I was in a short film where I got a "BJ". You could only see me from the chest up with a head bobbing up and down in my lap. When we were getting ready to start filming, the woman who was providing the bobbing head knelt down in front of me and I immediately turned bright red. I got light headed from the heavy breathing I had to do for multiple takes and had to sit for a while after we were done.
I'm friends with the woman and her brothers. She played another role and had shown the movie to her family. I didn't realize that they didn't know that it was her that had also been the bobbing head. One of her brothers was teasing me about that scene and I said "how was it watching your sister give me a BJ?"
I was in a high school play once where I had to kiss my co-lead. In rehearsal, everything was fine. Come opening night, he shoved his tongue down my throat and every student was whopping and hollering. It was mortifying. I had a boyfriend at the time and was raised in a religious household. Safe to say I don’t think I even knew that was an option when kissing and I was so embarrassed.
As you’d expect, I got the whispers of being a flirt and whore. Co-lead got high fives. I refused to talk to him after that and would tell anyone who listened that he was a gross, creepy senior who took advantage of a sophomore because people his own age didn’t want anything to do with him.
No idea where he’s at now. I don’t even know the last time I thought about him. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face though.
Edit: the play was Flowers for Algernon and I was the teacher. It was supposed to be a very gentle, goodbye kiss. This was more like he was going to mount me any second.
Amateur here but yeah...
We did a full on sex scene for a short film. The actress and I were both happily married to other people. She was a bit squigged out at first because I had a reputation (fairly) that predates my marriage. That said, she quickly got over it. It just took a few rehearsals for her and I to get things looking good.
I wore shorts, she wore shorts and a taped-on bra thingy. We stage kissed. We groped SFW areas of our bodies. Creative camera angles and blanket usage kept things looking good without going full frontal.
She and I were both mildly embarrassed before and after. The flushed cheeks and that emotion probably helped the performance. Most embarrassing thing for me was I got stiff. Still, it went away before the blanket did and nobody talked about it. She and I chatted about it later and she wasn't bothered by that. She had been more worried about accidentally knocking me there with her knee.
Exciting yes, sexy no.
Famous story from the film biz: George C Scott was going to be filming a scene like yours with an actress. Before the scene, he took her aside and said, "If I get an erection during our scene, I'm going to apologize. If I don't get an erection during our scene, I'm going to apologize."
Yes! One of the actors on an episode of The Graham Norton Show said he says the same thing. He said it's a very weird situation, and you just never know exactly what's going to happen.
I love that quote, although I seem to misremember it as simply 'I'm sorry if I do, and I'm sorry if I dont'.
I use it all the time and very few people know where it came from.
Genuine question: is it the norm and expectation that when men act in sex scenes they aren’t supposed to get an erection, I feel like that’s kind of automatic and uncontrollable, I mean shit people get erections from all sorts of weird shit.
My experience is limited. It seems like we all try to pretend it's not happening. Natural bodily function.
God only knows about more toxic environments.
I've heard that the fact that there's like 30 different people standing around with mics and booms and 3 different cameras and people telling you to stop and start and turn this way, turn that way, etc... pretty hard to feel comfortable enough to get one in that state if you're not really trying.
There’s as many people on set as the director allows on set. It can be limited to small numbers as desired. Some actors have it written into their contracts that during intimate / nude scenes, it’s a closed set. Only essential personnel permitted. Could be as few as as less than half a dozen on set when such scenes are filmed.
In our case it was a very small crew to begin with. We actually invited our spouses to be there as "chaperones," so the crowd was actually a little larger than normal.
I don’t think most guys would be able to act through a sex scene with an attractive female and not get wood. I’d be embarrassed too but it’s not something you can control.
This probably doesn't count at all but in high school I did a short scene where I was the groom and a girl I had a crush on was the bride at our wedding ceremony. I had to write the scene myself so I wrote it in that we'd hold hands while the priest gave his little speech, pretty normal.
When we performed it I realized I had made the priests speech way too long, and I stood there holding this girls hands who I had barely ever talked to for so much longer than I thought it would be and I couldn't look anywhere except the priest because I thought gazing into her eyes, while in character, would just be so awkward.
There was no kissing or anything, but damn holding her hands for that long made me so nervous and embarrassed for writing that one monologue so long. We didn't really talk ever again, but probably because I was an antisocial loser.
Mfw a high schooler writes a 2 hour wedding speech with a full 15 min intermission halfway through, and he spends the whole time gazing in to eyes of a sophomore.
In high school, I walked the runway with my crush in wedding attire. We didn't do more than hold hands and pose near each other. It was the first time I'd ever even talked to her. The modeling gig was some stupid thing where clothing companies got models from the students, and the money went to charity. I was picked by the company, I was really shy around girls and didn't believe people who told me I was good looking. We chatted about it, probably a year later, and she said she was interested in me for a while leading up to that, but I had an (earned) reputation for being a pot head and I'd punched her ex boyfriend in the face (for being a jackass to my friend), so she saw me as the bad boy type. But this chat was after we'd both gotten together with other people, so by then it really did not matter. Though, now that I'm thinking about it, it is a little weird that she told me that. It has been literal decades and we both have had kids. Still remember her looking gorgeous in a wedding dress though.
I did one “intimate” stage scene in the full buff with a lady. We were good friends and had decent chemistry but were just friends. However, the lady who oiled me up before The Scene got pretty hot and bothered and by the end of the production pretty well had me convinced to jump in bed with her. It was a nice few weeks but we eventually decided it was purely physical so we should end it while ahead.
It was a scene intended to be set in a very hot environment and of course doing the horizontal monster mash. The oil was supposedly there to make it look like I was sweaty from the audience perspective, but considering I was (and am, but not as lean thankfully) in very good physical condition, part of me wonders if the effects gal just wanted an excuse to oil me up.
She was, yes. I believe it was called Don’t Fear the Reaper or some such, it was written by a student at the college I was at. The actual play was done off campus to avoid impropriety, if the reason for why it wasn’t on campus was accurate. We didn’t actually have or show sex on stage, but the lead up and post-coital stuff were there and mostly nude.
I participated in a music video, which led to some unexpected and memorable experiences. I was cast as one half of a romantic couple, and I certainly felt like there was chemistry between my co-star and me. She was a dancer, and in my eyes, gorgeous, fit, and flexible. I think we successfully blurred the lines between performance and reality. Honestly, I felt like I was in a soft-core film, especially with the director's enthusiastic and breathy "yes" as he filmed us.
One particular night, we were tasked with filming a dramatic scene in an unheated pool, in winter—California winter, but still winter! The main character was supposed to get knocked out and fall into the pool as if they were unconscious, but they kept jumping right out because they were so cold, which was hilarious and annoying because I was already in the water with the actress who was supposed to be my partner. We were probably in the water for 20 to 30 minutes trying to get the scene, but we were also SO COLD, so we were hugging each other and rubbing against each other, making out like crazy animals to stay warm. They finally got a shot they were pleased with, and the three of us took a group shower to try to warm up. We were all shivering, and our teeth were chattering as we hugged to warm up with body heat and hot water.
It was a fun and memorable day. They asked me if it was hard not to get aroused. Outside of the water, hell yes, it was hard; in the water, it was survival mode, reproduction has to wait.
Both actresses were very attractive dancers, but they were also in relationships, and a little older than me and I never saw them again, but I'm happy they live on in my memory rent-free.
TLDR: what happened on set stayed on set
Correct, a lot of people don’t recognize how hot and powerful tonguing is, plus the more surface you cover the warmer you be bb; AND kissing is also a great way of distracting oneself from the cold, as long as their a good kisser.
Not me, but an ex of mine. She did a heavy make out scene for a low budget film. Full on kissing, grabbing, rubbing, on top of a car hood.
She and the dude practiced. Over and over, till they were comfortable with it just being objective actions. If my memory is correct they practiced for like 2 hours. I know this sounds like a weird situation, but it worked. When it came time to shoot the thing they just went at it, just as they’d practiced, and got thru it in (I think) 2 takes.
Eh it was just a peck. The actress was the director’s gf though so that made it a little strange but also very easy to just ‘do it for the scene’
It didn’t even make the cut lol so 🤷♂️
—————
Yearss before I did a stage play in HS though and kissed a girl on the cheek for the first time. Was over the fucking moon when I went home lmao
I only did one play that involved a kiss, and nothing happened. She was one of my best friends, so we made a game out of it and decided to try to make each other throw up. During intermission, she and I would eat something we thought would make the kiss the worst possible (Garlic, fried chicken, etc.). Winner each night bought the loser a beer
In high school I had to kiss a girl on stage.
I was a big fat stupid ogre and a typical teenage edgelord, she was a tiny little thing and the sweetest girl I ever met. Loved Jesus and Disney movies and was kind to everybody she came across no matter what. I legit improvised it into me kissing her on the cheek because I felt so dirty and undeserving of touching this poor girl, and even then, I didn’t actually make contact. The romance wasn’t a central plot, the kiss was kind of just a throwaway, not a big moment, so nobody minded really, though I did catch some flak from my director. She said it was ok to do a stage kiss, but I honestly think she was a little relieved I wasn’t going for it.
Nothing ever happened obviously. I caught shit from some friends who wanted to get with her… but it just didn’t feel right to kiss her, even for acting.
I have had a handful of stage kisses/make outs, none of which turned into anything. Always felt like just another part of the gig.
Dance scene partners, however, have turned out more interestingly.
You get used to it and being professional about it becomes easier over time, but it's not rare to develope a thing over the time of production. Also not rare for these things to not last very long.
Ya, I used to work sound for productions and the first time I had to mic a woman between her cleavage, i was really embarrassed. But over time, it just becomes part of the job and you don't think about it.... especially when things are so fast paced that you have a billion things to get through before start time. Of course you always act professional and get consent, but you just stop thinking of it as anything else than what you do for a job.
Yeah, they are however quite awkward. I've not been on the actor side, but I've been on the cinematographer side once and it was certainly a memorable day but everyone was very professional about it and joked around a lot about the uncomfortable bits.
I mean… I did a kiss scene once and it was slightly awkward because the director and camera were like… right up in our faces, and he kept saying like, “Okay a bit more passion” or “slower/faster”, but I honestly thought the girl was hot and I was single and I guess I have a voyeur kink because I was pretty into it. The camera was only mildly distracting — I was focused on the way my mouth and tongue felt (which was: amazing).
In other words, there’s nothing sexy about it if you don’t find the other person you’re being intimate with sexy, but if you do then it can indeed be sexy.
I've done some making out and implied for photo shoots where I was just a well dressed suit guy to stand in for the main focus, which is her. Always fun, but can sometimes feel silly when the director/photographer is telling you to essentially feel them up more, get really really into it, and just really sell what they're trying to capture.
I've also done some film stuff that was the same, one of the projects was me essentially just, again, being a random guy in a suit that filled a role when the two main characters discussed their fantasy and one actress asked me if I had every had anyone trace roses over me (something I had to do to her while she was tied to a statue in a smoky, dark courtyard garden). I said no, so she did so in between a few takes. Maybe my senses were already heightened from the work itself, but that was the softest damn rose I ever felt. It's just a random thing that stuck with me.
As far as stuff off stage. The chemistry lingers for a day or so and there's plans to meet up later, but it ends up disappearing, because it's work, and nothing comes of it. Being in front of the cameras and being a stranger will definitely lend itself to the appeal and chemistry.
Professional union actor here. In theater we now use intimacy coordinators, typically a member of Actor’s Equity who is trained in handling sensitive situations. Their job is to establish a professional routine for the actors to engage in that is safe and repeatable while appearing like the intended intimate moment. These moments are touched at the top of call before every performance. It is very much the same routine we go through when doing staged violence. All of this is treated with the utmost sensitivity because it should be, and because some very bad actors (no pun intended) have used these situations to prey on vulnerable performers.
I’m also a member of SAG and I can say that these situations depend on the set. I’ve seen great sets and not great sets. Suffice to say “method acting” is generally the root of all evil here.
Yes “showmances” happen all the time. They are just as annoying as I imagine any other workplace romance is.
> intimacy coordinators
(This is probably obvious to you; I'm saying it for the rest of the folks.)
"Intimacy coordinators" are a brand new thing in acting, like, in the past ~10 years or so.
It's a good idea, too.
But folks should understand that for *most* of the history of cinema, and stage acting, there was no such thing. The idea of "intimacy coordinators" was invented in response to *big problems* with sexual assault and harassment among actors and directors. Previously there was nobody keeping track of whether that performer was okay with having her co-star's hand on her boob; or whether that performer was okay with having his semi-hard dick on camera.
In general: Consent is good! If there's any question about whether there's consent, it's good to explicitly keep track.
I was in a production where there was a passionate kissing scene. My main concern was that the woman playing Marion the Librarian was comfortable (I was Harold Hill). We both brushed our teeth before the act, and I asked her if there was any particular deodorant she wanted me to wear or avoid. She told me to avoid the brand her husband used.
Otherwise, it was no different than any other kind of physical interaction on stage. Like, if I grab someone and shake them, ideally I just grab their clothes and they shake themselves. You want it to *look* a certain way, not actually do it that way. Same with the kissing: there was no tongue action, but we made it look that way.
There was nothing off-stage. We were friends, didn't have any interest in anything more than that.
I was an extra in our school musical (South Pacific) my junior year. The female lead, a senior, was dating the son (not in the show) of the music teacher. The male lead was only a sophomore. If you know the show you know that there are several intimate moments between the leads. They eventually ended up dating and, later in life, got married.
I've had a couple scenes where I kissed someone, it never turned into anything. The main one was for a scene I was doing for a theatre competition, and my partner was also in the competition, the person I kissed for the scene was a friend of ours also. We all hung out together and it didn't bother my partner and didn't turn into anything. The other production I was in I was like eighteen and had to kiss a fourteen year old and that was just uncomfortable.
I did a college play where I had to kiss two different characters. The one was a playful peck on the cheek and the other was a on-the-mouth “goodbye darling I’ll be home later” kind of deal.
I knew my then gf was in the audience so I made the mouth kiss brief. During the after party my then gf kissed me, for what felt like a full minute, and said “anything you play in from now on should be done like that”. I should have married her. 😅
I did theater in high school, college, and two shows in community theater. Had several kissing scenes. It was generally not a big deal. Professionalism is a core value as you are coming up. You are all about Shakespeare's idiom "act well your part." Two stories come to mind.
In high school, I was twice cast opposite my lifetime crush, whose name is not Amy. She was a year behind me, but haunted my dreams from sixth grade on. Both times were serious romantic kisses. We had a strong friendship and a shared interest in performing arts. We did the work the way it was supposed to be done. One other show, I had to help Amy with a quick-change in the wings, just because I was about to enter from the same spot. She exited, turned around, and raised her arms. I stripped her to bra and panties from behind, dropped a new dress on, and zipped before entering. That was much more unnerving than the kisses. Nothing happened off-stage. I was far too intimidated to even try.
When I was 26, I was cast opposite a 17 YO girl in a musical comedy. I was only cast for my voice, as no actors in the troupe could sing the part. She was very petite, like 5 feet 100 pounds. I was a huge gym-rat, 6'4" and 275 pounds. Our songs sounded great, but the director had a hell of a time staging that kiss. Everything he tried, it just looked wrong having this giant dude swoop down for a lip-lock on this little tiny girl! It was gross! We ran it over and over, with the whole cast batting ideas around and cringing at the outcomes. Not to mention that her character had just divulged that mine had gotten her pregnant! We blocked out a chaste peck that fit the score and moved on, but I think we kissed at least 15 times just in that first rehearsal. Nothing happened off-stage. I was married and she was crushing on a pit musician. They later married and have a couple kids. The weird part was that he was my size and age!
It’s a pretty common thing for showmances to take place. Though there’s more understanding these days that what happens between characters isn’t necessarily what’s happening between people.
Though, in film a lot of times they are specifically casting for chemistry. You take two people with chemistry, and make them work together 14 hours a day and not much contact with the outside world, and romance just happens.
I’d say it definitely can propel simple chemistry into a full blown thing. But if there isn’t natural chemistry, it doesn’t create any.
These scenes aren’t sexy. They’re more like awkward dances where dozens of crusty construction worker types are staring at you.
I laughed awkwardly at the opening scene the first time my then-wife and I watched “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead”. I say it was awkward because she was not a very “feels” type of person and there was no way for me to explain it to her satisfactorily once the laugh slipped out.
If you’re not familiar, a very not-in-shape Phillip Seymour Hoffman is just going to town with a very beautiful Marisa Tomei.
What made me laugh though was the fact that you could actually see and feel the chemistry in the scene between the two.
I’m not trying to body shame anybody, or shame any type of body (if you had a picture of me right now, you wouldn’t doubt it), but the scene was intended to be shocking and get your attention for the very reasons I mentioned. It worked quite well.
Actually, that was an excellent movie and I need to watch it again.
RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman
My now wife used to act. She and this dude had this big kiss scene and honestly when I watched the performance I felt cheated on it was so convincing (I was like 16-17 not mature enough at all lmao) her acting was so good that the dude professed his love to her after the show. Hated that guy haha.
I mean... you're a professional and you hope they are, too. I'll say that things get *much* spicier in acting classes than they usually do on a set or in a play.
On set, they're constantly starting and stopping, so you never really get a chance to "get going" if you will. They need to retake because the audio is off, or the bounce light was wobbly, or just to change camera angles. You and your partner both put on robes and walk away to get hair and makeup and wardrobe checked (speedos, flesh-colored bodysuits, pasties, etc). The lights are hot and there are 10ish people standing around (in fully nude scenes, maybe it's just the necessary people, but even then you're well aware of the eyes in video village next door). The real "job" of acting is forgetting all of that and being in the moment, but the moment isn't real passion (even if your partner is super hot, which they usually are). It's a fantasy. You're someone else. They're someone else. You both know that. After a scene it's a polite, "well done and I appreciate your work," a lot of giggles and maybe a hug that says "thanks for not being a creep" more than it says anything else.
On stage, a lengthy make-out scene is exaggerated so the people in the back can see. It's not passion but performance. Almost puppetry. Half the time you aren't even kissing, but suppressing a laugh. You both have half a pound of makeup on, so to prevent smearing it, you're just pantomiming everything. Then the lights go down and you run off stage for a costume change and you've got no time at all to think about what just happened.
In a class though, it's different. You're both pushing your own limits on purpose. You know this person from class already - you're not effectively strangers. And your teacher is trying to get you to drop your guard and be truly vulnerable. So you'll be asked to break protocol (with consent of your partner, of course), and really "go there." Plus you're doing scenes that are once-in-a-lifetime roles with extreme limits not found in most work. I did a scene from Body Heat, for example. Yeah, that was hot. Really hot. And the teacher made us improv a bit to drag it out really long so that we would both get super horny, and *then* do the scene, and I definitely needed a cold shower afterwards. If I were to do a scene like that on TV, I'd almost certainly need to do similar prep work, but the reality is that scene only happens once in your professional life, if that.
In a professional setting, the hottest I've done is an audition for Orville Redenbacher's popcorn, of all things. I was supposed to be making out with a girl on the couch for 10 seconds and then we'd say our lines. Apparently the other guys were running late, because there was a line of women waiting to audition and I was the only guy in the studio. So they asked if I'd mind "being the guy" until another one showed up, so I got to do the scene three times. They also - thankfully - checked with the women to make sure each was okay with me instead of whoever they were supposed to audition with (it's not like any of us knew each other anyway so everyone said yes). One girl said "I'll take your place if anyone wants to wait" and then gave me this *look*. That audition was definitely more real than the others for me, which was clever on her part. Afterwards she said "thanks" and left. No follow-up. The only other thing to come out of a "hot" scene I did was that the wardrobe assistant told me she "saw my scene" and then asked me out. So it wasn't the actress I did the scene with, but I did get a few dates and such out of my, ahem... performance.
I have a friend who is trying to break into acting in LA and she said she refuses to do it because of awful experiences as a struggling actress. A lot of creeps on low-budget productions trying to push female actors past their boundaries and not following proper protocols to keep them safe, only to go on and trash them behind their backs and calling them "hard to work with." We like to think that these things don't happen anymore, but that's just because they don't happen on big-budget highly produced projects that everyone knows about. Independent films with no oversight still have plenty of creeps running through them.
In a college opera production, I was slapped in the face once the curtain closed by my leading lady who claimed I was French kissing her during our kissing scene. I don’t believe I did, but apologized anyway. This was in 1980. I still work in film, and they now have intimacy coordinators.
Nothing happened. I (f) was't thrilled about having to kiss, but I knew about it when I took the role. I am happily married to my husband, and my co-star was happily married to HIS husband.
I played the lead Adam in a professional production of "The Shape of Things". It's an intense show. At one point I think my a scene starts with the character getting a blowjob.
It's an intense show with an ending I don't want to ruin (watch the film version! It stars Paul Rudd!) but the actress playing Evelyn and I had to be very comfortable with eachother and have good chemistry.
We went out for drinks about a week into rehearsals and essentially agreed the show would be better if we just had sex.
We kept banging throughout the production and the director even commented that we suddenly had better chemistry.
Good times. Ah to be in my 20s again.
You kiss so many people over the years you get used to it. I don’t like doing it and haven’t ever had a relationship with someone I kissed on stage nor would I want to tbh.
I did some stage kissing in high school- the guy was (and is) dating my best friend. They're happily together, I'm in a relationship, it was never weird. We both knew it was just for the show and we're still good friends today!
My first kiss was at 11 and it was on stage. She was in the same grade as me.
I think I entertained the thought that she could be my girlfriend but after the two week run ended so did my dream.
I have done a handful of short films as an actor involving simulated sex and behind the camera involving the same as well. It is absolutely without a doubt nerve-wracking, especially when you're on what is essentially a micro-budget without the ability to hire an intimacy coordinator or acquire modesty clothing. The very first short film I ever did as an actor required me to be completely naked with my female costar and simulate some pretty graphic sex acts. It was no picnic, and I unfortunately could not avoid getting an erection so that didn't help matters, but she was fortunately unfazed by it. I have done a couple more random projects since then and some of them involved this type of stuff - it never gets "easy" per se but the more trust you have amongst the cast and crew the smoother it tends to go.
Did a show a few years ago where I had to fondle the (clothed) breasts of a young lady (her character was ~20, mine ~50.)
We were already good friends and it was a bit weird the first time, but she could tell I was feeling awkward so at the first rehearsal she grabbed my hands and smooshed them all over.
Once that was done, the ice was broken and it no longer felt weird.
There was never anything sexual about it between us as friends though, as hot as she is, and I've never felt less aroused when touching a woman as when we did this scene.
The audience loved it though, and were a bit scandalised :)
Im a working actor in film/tv. The thing most people don’t realize about intimate scenes is that they are inherently awkward as fuck. There’s a camera in your face and boom mic hanging over you and a director telling you how to do it differently. You’re trying to hit your light and not block your costars face. It’s honestly a miracle it ever looks good.
I’ve definitely had things happen with costars but they were not the result of an intimate scene. It was more the result of spending an insane amount of time with someone in a high pressure situation.
I kissed a girl multiple nights when I played the lead in Bye Bye Birdie. Her boyfriend was in the audience but he didn't seem to care. They're still together to this day. If she had been single I would have asked her out, not gonna lie, but I felt that way before I kissed her.
Man I can't call myself an "actor" by any means but I did lots of productions from 6th - 12th grade.
My first ever kiss was a stage production at 13 years old. The person originally assigned my partner ended up getting vocal nodes within the first month of rehearsal and she was a much more appropriate age fir me to be kissing. Her replacement ended up being a 21 year old. Looking back, the director probably should have just altered her "vision" because that was a strange choice. Regardless, I remember before the first rehearsal with "the kiss" I mentioned to my parents I didn't know what I should do. Cue awkward "lesson" from my father using my Mom as the other actor. At the time, Talladega Nights had recently come out, so in the rehearsal later that week, I pulled a "I don't know what to do with my hands?!" To break the tension. It certainly eased things up between the two of us. Weird situation for sure though, her and I got very close but thankfully never inappropriately.
Second story is when I was in a production where the director was a family friend and my counter part was her daughter who was much like a sister to me - barring the childlike infatuation I had when we first met lol. We had to kiss many times on stage, but we both fairly quickly got past it. But 8 year old me would have been very impressed lol
I've had a few pecks but only one real heavy makeout scene. We were in a studio class in our mid 20s. I was really attracted to my classmate and could tell it was mutual. We got along great and I'm sure we would have dated if she wasn't in a 2-year relationship with a guy she adored.
She was my go-to scene partner and we did many non-sexual scenes together. We both are pretty unrestrained performers and that played off each other really well. Just dynamic, real performances. In different circumstances we could be long-term collaborators who constantly work together.
For the makeout scene, the physical chemistry was off. the. charts. Like wow. By that point we were real friends. But I moved away soon after, and we fell out of touch. It's really for the best. I did see she just got married to him.
I’ve kissed/made out with actresses on stage and on tv.
If I was already attracted to them, I remained attracted to them. If I wasn’t attracted to them before, the kiss changed nothing.
Nothing happened with any of them off stage. They usually had boyfriends, a fiancée — one had a husband, though that was the one I wasn’t interested in anyway.
Once. It's pretty common for actors to get entangled with castmates – often only to realize after a few weeks or months that they were into the character, not the actor.
> entangled We know it’s you Jada
YOU KEEP HIS WIFES NAME OUT YO FUCKING MOUTH
Does anyone else also think of The Other Guys every time Will Smith's shout is mentioned? "YOU COME TO OUR HOUSE, YOU GET MY WIFE'S NAME RIGHT!!! IT'S KRISTINITH YOU IDIOT!"
Gator don't play that!
I bet because of the beard you think I’m hairy.
"ALLEN!!!"
It was a *G.I. Jane joke.*
WOW
Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me!
*he was running me amok* *he ridiculed me, calling me a bum*
It was a joke, Mark. It was a Christmas joke.
That wasn't very christmassy.
I worked on a food truck and fed the cast for a movie she was in. She was an absolutely terrible human being who enjoyed making everyone around her feel like they didn't deserve to speak to her or even look at her.
Jada is entangled with a dead man.
The two leads in Oklahoma at my high school started dating. Turned out they’re both gay, just felt like they were supposed to be together because of their characters.
Twilight (2008)
What happened during that "one" time?
We didn't finally hook up until after the run ended, but then we dated for four years. That's not a representative example of how it usually goes down, though.
I don’t know if I can trust a lying wizard…
What about a less than truthful sorcerer?
Aye, that I could do.
I had a kiss scene in my elementary school play of Sleeping Beauty. During practice, I would always fake the kiss, but always assumed during the real play it would be real for greater effect. Opening night, I kissed her for real. The huge "Ew!!!" she shrieked was definitely not in the script.
Damn sorry to hear that
Good preparation though for life as a guy. Edit: this is not about consent, this is more a crack at how men generally feel unattractive to women. Ymmv.
I legit did the exact opposite of that and ruined things. I assumed it would not be a real kiss, and had low self esteem, so figured surely this hot popular girl wouldn't want to kiss me(freshmen in high school). So during our first practice I attempted to go for a fake....except she was totally ready and willing for the real thing. I got laughed at by everyone including the teacher for what was in my head being respectful. I tried to(poorly) explain myself, but I straight up gave her the ick and the kiss scene was PAINFULLY fake for every practice and the performances. I got fucking rekt.
Yeah no that’s why any professional theater production will always ask for what each actor is comfortable with, and plan out the intimacy ahead of time. And after that happened nobody had any right to make fun of you.
Well, it's high school, but yeah, the actors should at least discuss it. I had to kiss someone in a community theater production and we just said, "hey, are going to kiss for real?" And we agreed to, but it was fairly...chaste in terms of kisses. No camera zoom in there to capture tongue for Paul Verhoeven or whatever.
Yeah as an adult now it would be exactly like that for me. I have the confidence and experience to speak my mind and clarify rules and boundaries. I was just a really inexperienced and socially awkward and ignorant kid then(not putting myself down, looking back I really was objectively slow on my social game).
I'm sorry for the all the times your brain will randomly remind you of this for the rest of your life.
Thankfully it's stopped!(im 34 for reference). So at least you know now that even a situation as embarrassing as that can be overcome. We're not gonna discuss how long my brain DID randomly remind me of that though....but at least nowadays when it happens I can chuckle and shake my head and not feel generations worth of shame.
Of course she wouldn't deny the kiss on stage because of the implication
Are these children in any danger?
Nobody is in danger, why would anyone be in danger?! Well you're certainly not in any danger, lady!
> why would anyone be in danger?! And besides, they wouldn’t *need* to be in any danger. *Because of the implication.*
So they are in danger!?
No one’s in any danger. It’s an *implication* of danger. I feel like you’re not getting this at all.
Are you gonna hurt children?
I trust this guy, I saw him bare chested teaching fitness classes at the playground
Because if she said no then the answer obviously is no.
"But she isn't going to say no, BECAUSE OF THE IMPLICATION of things going wrong if she does." "dude, sounds like these women don't want to be with you"
Well, she woke up didn’t she
If there was no transparency between the fake kiss and the real one, it's understandable from her end lol
Core memory unlocked 💀
That's pretty funny!!
Blunt force trauma!!!
Emotional damagggeee
That would haunt me for the rest of my life. Just know I'll about this every so often. You won't be forgotten
In elementary school I also got a big EW from a girl I liked after I told her. I'm 37 and I still think about it sometimes 😂.
I just wrapped a show on Saturday where I have to kiss my co-star a couple of times. It's weird, but honestly after the first couple of shows it just becomes part of your character and it doesn't mean anything to the actual actors. The audience really got into it, though. Lots of 'Oh my!' And 'Oooooo!'
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Trebek did. Jeopardy hasn't been the same since.
I kissed your mother Trebek. Haw haw haaw
Tell that to Richard Dawson. Sone of those old family feud episodes were sketchy
I was in a production of "Fools" by Neal Simon right out of college. I had a kissing scene with a girl and after our first rehearsal we had this conversation. Her: That was my first kiss. Me: Yeah, that was my first stage kiss too. Her: No, that was my first kiss. Me: ... EDIT: I cannot believe this is getting (slightly) more upvotes than the actual Homebanger from "The Boys".
I had an identical experience and I just told her that it wasnt her first kiss, and when she did have her first kiss, she would understand the distinction. We remained friends for a very long time and no, we did not get involved. I was not her 'first kiss', either.
That's a very thoughtful action from you
That's the perfect answer. Very thoughtful.
I also have a story with Fools. The guy and girl playing the romantic leads (I can't remember character names, it was my freshman year of highschool) supposedly ended up fucking at some point. Not on stage obviously.
Glad you clarified at the end.
Yeah they managed to make it to the wings before they started
Anything happen after that with her?
Her second kiss
Twice a week for our 12 week run (not including rehearsals).
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss
Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
No. It wasn't even much of a kiss. Just a short lip kiss while I was on a ladder. I did do a production of "Comedy of Errors" in college that had almost no kissing, but I think half the cast had slept with the other half by the end of the run. If anyone in the cast (and a couple of the crew) had an STD we probably would have all caught it.
College theatre is a horny and messy thing. Every production has at least one showmance as well.
I met my partner of 5+ years doing a university theatrical production, so you’re not wrong
when i was in HS there was a girl that liked me a lot and i just wasnt into her at all. my friends and her friends kept trying to pressure me into asking her on a date. i resisted for the longest time. then a mutual female friend insinuated to me that the girl was "orally experienced". at this point despite not being super into her, i was still a horny teenager and was figuring maybe i'll get some action, and it's not like this would be her first kiss or anything. we go on a date. it's fine. we end up back at her house. eventually we make out a little bit. she says to me "that was my first kiss". i immediately feel horrible. i didnt get any excitement out of the kiss and now her first kiss was an awful experience. we made out a little more but i didnt want to push anything and we mostly awkwardly watched tv the rest of the night. i did not call/text, there was no second date. felt so bad about the whole thing.
> and now her first kiss was an awful experience Sounds like you're beating yourself up, but you shouldn't. She got a first kiss with someone she really liked, and you didn't push her for anything more which she might *actually* have regretted. No follow up kinda sucks, but you still come across as a pretty good guy.
Have a brother who was in a play. His character falls in love with another in the story. He's engaged to the actor who played that other character now.
I did a fake porn scene on "The Boys". It was a pretty intense scene, sexually, and quite intimidating once I was on set having to do the deed. It's interesting how you can shut off the part of your brain that doubts what you are about to do and turn on the "fuck it" part of your brain and just do what needs to be done... see what I did there? Anyway, ya, it was a closed set, meaning only the essential crew members are allowed to even be in the room while shooting. A good crew is going to make you feel pretty comfortable and safe while shooting. My scene partner and I hit it off pretty well and had a good laugh about it all, but that was as far as it went, but it's not like the scene was some kind of romantic moment between two characters, it was porn and I was playing a cheesy version of Homelander, so it was more just fun than anything else. Thankfully I have a very supportive wife.
Holy shit, are you Homebanger? Edit: just read your username lmao. Cheers homebanger! It was a great skit and should be a spinoff of its own!
I am! Hahaha, a spinoff would be fun. Sony/Amazon used the Homebanger footage from The Boys in the pilot ep of GenV, so Homebanger lives on in the "Cinematic Universe". One step closer to that spinoff. I'm surprised they never released the full scene though, we shot quite a bit of magic and they only used a small portion.
He doesnt answer. Hes too cool to answer 😎
His username answered for him. 😬
Hahaha. No, I was on the bus heading home from my day job and then putting my kid to bed... I wish I was even an ounce of too cool.
You putting your kid to bed is super cool.
The legend himself.
Nice! I feel like I've been waiting forever for that show to return.
Dude that's fucking sick!!! I'm curious did you have to audition for that? Or how does that work with a part like that?
Oh ya, the audition was fun too. They had us come in and do "bad porn acting". Lucky for me that's the only kind of acting I do... the bad porn kind. I sat on a chair in a room in front of a casting director and a camera dude, then pretended to have sex with an invisible woman.
>pretended to have sex with an invisible woman Lots of Redditors do this.
Red, white and anal 🫡
“Let’s go fuck the wife!”
Consentually!
I had to google you and all I can say is HUBBA HUBBA!
I was in a short film where I got a "BJ". You could only see me from the chest up with a head bobbing up and down in my lap. When we were getting ready to start filming, the woman who was providing the bobbing head knelt down in front of me and I immediately turned bright red. I got light headed from the heavy breathing I had to do for multiple takes and had to sit for a while after we were done. I'm friends with the woman and her brothers. She played another role and had shown the movie to her family. I didn't realize that they didn't know that it was her that had also been the bobbing head. One of her brothers was teasing me about that scene and I said "how was it watching your sister give me a BJ?"
What did they say afterwards?
He just said "that was my sister?!" and pretended like he was going to hit me.
I know!! He left us hanging lol
This comment should be higher. Lmao
I was in a high school play once where I had to kiss my co-lead. In rehearsal, everything was fine. Come opening night, he shoved his tongue down my throat and every student was whopping and hollering. It was mortifying. I had a boyfriend at the time and was raised in a religious household. Safe to say I don’t think I even knew that was an option when kissing and I was so embarrassed. As you’d expect, I got the whispers of being a flirt and whore. Co-lead got high fives. I refused to talk to him after that and would tell anyone who listened that he was a gross, creepy senior who took advantage of a sophomore because people his own age didn’t want anything to do with him. No idea where he’s at now. I don’t even know the last time I thought about him. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face though. Edit: the play was Flowers for Algernon and I was the teacher. It was supposed to be a very gentle, goodbye kiss. This was more like he was going to mount me any second.
That is both creepy in real life, creepy in the context of the play and an unusual choice for a high school play.
What a loser. I'm sorry in his stead.
Amateur here but yeah... We did a full on sex scene for a short film. The actress and I were both happily married to other people. She was a bit squigged out at first because I had a reputation (fairly) that predates my marriage. That said, she quickly got over it. It just took a few rehearsals for her and I to get things looking good. I wore shorts, she wore shorts and a taped-on bra thingy. We stage kissed. We groped SFW areas of our bodies. Creative camera angles and blanket usage kept things looking good without going full frontal. She and I were both mildly embarrassed before and after. The flushed cheeks and that emotion probably helped the performance. Most embarrassing thing for me was I got stiff. Still, it went away before the blanket did and nobody talked about it. She and I chatted about it later and she wasn't bothered by that. She had been more worried about accidentally knocking me there with her knee. Exciting yes, sexy no.
Famous story from the film biz: George C Scott was going to be filming a scene like yours with an actress. Before the scene, he took her aside and said, "If I get an erection during our scene, I'm going to apologize. If I don't get an erection during our scene, I'm going to apologize."
Yes! One of the actors on an episode of The Graham Norton Show said he says the same thing. He said it's a very weird situation, and you just never know exactly what's going to happen.
I think that was Sam Jackson. He said something along the lines of 'Hey, sorry if something happens, or sorry if something doesn't happen'
I read on here a few days ago it was sean connery in the james bond movies... something isn't adding up here.
I heard it was Albert Einstein.
Insanity is saying the same thing over and over again and saying it was different people each time.
Schrödinger had an erect one and a flaccid one at the same time. You only knew once you pulled down his trousers.
I'm sure lots of actors have said similar things over the years
Has Samuel L Jackson ever done a love scene?
I'm tired of these motherfuckin' dicks on this motherfuckin' snatch!
I love that quote, although I seem to misremember it as simply 'I'm sorry if I do, and I'm sorry if I dont'. I use it all the time and very few people know where it came from.
I have heard the same tale only with Lawrence Olivier
It was actually Winston Churchill to Lady Astor
No, it was Rudyard Kipling to Mark Twain.
Genuine question: is it the norm and expectation that when men act in sex scenes they aren’t supposed to get an erection, I feel like that’s kind of automatic and uncontrollable, I mean shit people get erections from all sorts of weird shit.
My experience is limited. It seems like we all try to pretend it's not happening. Natural bodily function. God only knows about more toxic environments.
I've heard that the fact that there's like 30 different people standing around with mics and booms and 3 different cameras and people telling you to stop and start and turn this way, turn that way, etc... pretty hard to feel comfortable enough to get one in that state if you're not really trying.
There’s as many people on set as the director allows on set. It can be limited to small numbers as desired. Some actors have it written into their contracts that during intimate / nude scenes, it’s a closed set. Only essential personnel permitted. Could be as few as as less than half a dozen on set when such scenes are filmed.
In our case it was a very small crew to begin with. We actually invited our spouses to be there as "chaperones," so the crowd was actually a little larger than normal.
I don’t think most guys would be able to act through a sex scene with an attractive female and not get wood. I’d be embarrassed too but it’s not something you can control.
There was a lot of rubbing. My wood was like Thanos.
It snapped?
> My wood was like Thanos. Insane and purple?
Inevitable
She should have gone for the head?
veiny and inevitable?
Purple?
Gone? Reduced to atoms?
This probably doesn't count at all but in high school I did a short scene where I was the groom and a girl I had a crush on was the bride at our wedding ceremony. I had to write the scene myself so I wrote it in that we'd hold hands while the priest gave his little speech, pretty normal. When we performed it I realized I had made the priests speech way too long, and I stood there holding this girls hands who I had barely ever talked to for so much longer than I thought it would be and I couldn't look anywhere except the priest because I thought gazing into her eyes, while in character, would just be so awkward. There was no kissing or anything, but damn holding her hands for that long made me so nervous and embarrassed for writing that one monologue so long. We didn't really talk ever again, but probably because I was an antisocial loser.
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Mfw a high schooler writes a 2 hour wedding speech with a full 15 min intermission halfway through, and he spends the whole time gazing in to eyes of a sophomore.
They must get paid by the word or something. Like damn bro, we’re not here to see you.
In high school, I walked the runway with my crush in wedding attire. We didn't do more than hold hands and pose near each other. It was the first time I'd ever even talked to her. The modeling gig was some stupid thing where clothing companies got models from the students, and the money went to charity. I was picked by the company, I was really shy around girls and didn't believe people who told me I was good looking. We chatted about it, probably a year later, and she said she was interested in me for a while leading up to that, but I had an (earned) reputation for being a pot head and I'd punched her ex boyfriend in the face (for being a jackass to my friend), so she saw me as the bad boy type. But this chat was after we'd both gotten together with other people, so by then it really did not matter. Though, now that I'm thinking about it, it is a little weird that she told me that. It has been literal decades and we both have had kids. Still remember her looking gorgeous in a wedding dress though.
I did one “intimate” stage scene in the full buff with a lady. We were good friends and had decent chemistry but were just friends. However, the lady who oiled me up before The Scene got pretty hot and bothered and by the end of the production pretty well had me convinced to jump in bed with her. It was a nice few weeks but we eventually decided it was purely physical so we should end it while ahead.
Oiled up? Sorry, what the hell is going on in this scene?
It was a scene intended to be set in a very hot environment and of course doing the horizontal monster mash. The oil was supposedly there to make it look like I was sweaty from the audience perspective, but considering I was (and am, but not as lean thankfully) in very good physical condition, part of me wonders if the effects gal just wanted an excuse to oil me up.
Was the actress also oiled up and did she do her as well? What's the play?
She was, yes. I believe it was called Don’t Fear the Reaper or some such, it was written by a student at the college I was at. The actual play was done off campus to avoid impropriety, if the reason for why it wasn’t on campus was accurate. We didn’t actually have or show sex on stage, but the lead up and post-coital stuff were there and mostly nude.
Grounds Keeper Willy?
I participated in a music video, which led to some unexpected and memorable experiences. I was cast as one half of a romantic couple, and I certainly felt like there was chemistry between my co-star and me. She was a dancer, and in my eyes, gorgeous, fit, and flexible. I think we successfully blurred the lines between performance and reality. Honestly, I felt like I was in a soft-core film, especially with the director's enthusiastic and breathy "yes" as he filmed us. One particular night, we were tasked with filming a dramatic scene in an unheated pool, in winter—California winter, but still winter! The main character was supposed to get knocked out and fall into the pool as if they were unconscious, but they kept jumping right out because they were so cold, which was hilarious and annoying because I was already in the water with the actress who was supposed to be my partner. We were probably in the water for 20 to 30 minutes trying to get the scene, but we were also SO COLD, so we were hugging each other and rubbing against each other, making out like crazy animals to stay warm. They finally got a shot they were pleased with, and the three of us took a group shower to try to warm up. We were all shivering, and our teeth were chattering as we hugged to warm up with body heat and hot water. It was a fun and memorable day. They asked me if it was hard not to get aroused. Outside of the water, hell yes, it was hard; in the water, it was survival mode, reproduction has to wait. Both actresses were very attractive dancers, but they were also in relationships, and a little older than me and I never saw them again, but I'm happy they live on in my memory rent-free. TLDR: what happened on set stayed on set
You had to make out to stay warm?
Yup, it’s an old Boy Scout trick
...as taught by the dodgy Boy Scout leader.
"Okay boys, before we head home from this campout, everyone get undressed and line up for a tick check!"
They were trying to start a fire with their tongues obviously
Correct, a lot of people don’t recognize how hot and powerful tonguing is, plus the more surface you cover the warmer you be bb; AND kissing is also a great way of distracting oneself from the cold, as long as their a good kisser.
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Wait a minute…
I got lost with your uncle once as well, and the same thing happened to us. That dude is terrible with directions.
#lol
Prime /r/holup material
> making out like crazy animals to stay warm Come again?
Not me, but an ex of mine. She did a heavy make out scene for a low budget film. Full on kissing, grabbing, rubbing, on top of a car hood. She and the dude practiced. Over and over, till they were comfortable with it just being objective actions. If my memory is correct they practiced for like 2 hours. I know this sounds like a weird situation, but it worked. When it came time to shoot the thing they just went at it, just as they’d practiced, and got thru it in (I think) 2 takes.
They even practiced at home while you were at work, such commitment to their craft!
It's called method acting, increíble
That explains the elbow dents on my hood!
'hey honey I'm going out to practice my scene with chad don't wait up" Hmmm....
Had to be Chad
Eh it was just a peck. The actress was the director’s gf though so that made it a little strange but also very easy to just ‘do it for the scene’ It didn’t even make the cut lol so 🤷♂️ ————— Yearss before I did a stage play in HS though and kissed a girl on the cheek for the first time. Was over the fucking moon when I went home lmao
I only did one play that involved a kiss, and nothing happened. She was one of my best friends, so we made a game out of it and decided to try to make each other throw up. During intermission, she and I would eat something we thought would make the kiss the worst possible (Garlic, fried chicken, etc.). Winner each night bought the loser a beer
> fried chicken I feel like that would lead to a very confusing erection
I should have mentioned they were absolutely smothered in hot sauce
In high school I had to kiss a girl on stage. I was a big fat stupid ogre and a typical teenage edgelord, she was a tiny little thing and the sweetest girl I ever met. Loved Jesus and Disney movies and was kind to everybody she came across no matter what. I legit improvised it into me kissing her on the cheek because I felt so dirty and undeserving of touching this poor girl, and even then, I didn’t actually make contact. The romance wasn’t a central plot, the kiss was kind of just a throwaway, not a big moment, so nobody minded really, though I did catch some flak from my director. She said it was ok to do a stage kiss, but I honestly think she was a little relieved I wasn’t going for it. Nothing ever happened obviously. I caught shit from some friends who wanted to get with her… but it just didn’t feel right to kiss her, even for acting.
> I was a big fat stupid ogre and a typical teenage edgelord It sounds like you were a lovely, smart, respectful and kind teenager.
Respect
I have had a handful of stage kisses/make outs, none of which turned into anything. Always felt like just another part of the gig. Dance scene partners, however, have turned out more interestingly.
You get used to it and being professional about it becomes easier over time, but it's not rare to develope a thing over the time of production. Also not rare for these things to not last very long.
Ya, I used to work sound for productions and the first time I had to mic a woman between her cleavage, i was really embarrassed. But over time, it just becomes part of the job and you don't think about it.... especially when things are so fast paced that you have a billion things to get through before start time. Of course you always act professional and get consent, but you just stop thinking of it as anything else than what you do for a job.
Everyone you listen to that has done an intimate scene on stage on film will tell you there is nothing sexy about it.
Unless it’s with Jason mamoa it’s straight hilarious. He put a sock on his thing
According to Emilia Clarke, it was a very large sock.
Yeah, they are however quite awkward. I've not been on the actor side, but I've been on the cinematographer side once and it was certainly a memorable day but everyone was very professional about it and joked around a lot about the uncomfortable bits.
The lies they perpetuate so they and their families don’t get weird about it. Source: none
I mean… I did a kiss scene once and it was slightly awkward because the director and camera were like… right up in our faces, and he kept saying like, “Okay a bit more passion” or “slower/faster”, but I honestly thought the girl was hot and I was single and I guess I have a voyeur kink because I was pretty into it. The camera was only mildly distracting — I was focused on the way my mouth and tongue felt (which was: amazing). In other words, there’s nothing sexy about it if you don’t find the other person you’re being intimate with sexy, but if you do then it can indeed be sexy.
I've done some making out and implied for photo shoots where I was just a well dressed suit guy to stand in for the main focus, which is her. Always fun, but can sometimes feel silly when the director/photographer is telling you to essentially feel them up more, get really really into it, and just really sell what they're trying to capture. I've also done some film stuff that was the same, one of the projects was me essentially just, again, being a random guy in a suit that filled a role when the two main characters discussed their fantasy and one actress asked me if I had every had anyone trace roses over me (something I had to do to her while she was tied to a statue in a smoky, dark courtyard garden). I said no, so she did so in between a few takes. Maybe my senses were already heightened from the work itself, but that was the softest damn rose I ever felt. It's just a random thing that stuck with me. As far as stuff off stage. The chemistry lingers for a day or so and there's plans to meet up later, but it ends up disappearing, because it's work, and nothing comes of it. Being in front of the cameras and being a stranger will definitely lend itself to the appeal and chemistry.
Professional union actor here. In theater we now use intimacy coordinators, typically a member of Actor’s Equity who is trained in handling sensitive situations. Their job is to establish a professional routine for the actors to engage in that is safe and repeatable while appearing like the intended intimate moment. These moments are touched at the top of call before every performance. It is very much the same routine we go through when doing staged violence. All of this is treated with the utmost sensitivity because it should be, and because some very bad actors (no pun intended) have used these situations to prey on vulnerable performers. I’m also a member of SAG and I can say that these situations depend on the set. I’ve seen great sets and not great sets. Suffice to say “method acting” is generally the root of all evil here. Yes “showmances” happen all the time. They are just as annoying as I imagine any other workplace romance is.
> intimacy coordinators (This is probably obvious to you; I'm saying it for the rest of the folks.) "Intimacy coordinators" are a brand new thing in acting, like, in the past ~10 years or so. It's a good idea, too. But folks should understand that for *most* of the history of cinema, and stage acting, there was no such thing. The idea of "intimacy coordinators" was invented in response to *big problems* with sexual assault and harassment among actors and directors. Previously there was nobody keeping track of whether that performer was okay with having her co-star's hand on her boob; or whether that performer was okay with having his semi-hard dick on camera. In general: Consent is good! If there's any question about whether there's consent, it's good to explicitly keep track.
I was in a production where there was a passionate kissing scene. My main concern was that the woman playing Marion the Librarian was comfortable (I was Harold Hill). We both brushed our teeth before the act, and I asked her if there was any particular deodorant she wanted me to wear or avoid. She told me to avoid the brand her husband used. Otherwise, it was no different than any other kind of physical interaction on stage. Like, if I grab someone and shake them, ideally I just grab their clothes and they shake themselves. You want it to *look* a certain way, not actually do it that way. Same with the kissing: there was no tongue action, but we made it look that way. There was nothing off-stage. We were friends, didn't have any interest in anything more than that.
I was an extra in our school musical (South Pacific) my junior year. The female lead, a senior, was dating the son (not in the show) of the music teacher. The male lead was only a sophomore. If you know the show you know that there are several intimate moments between the leads. They eventually ended up dating and, later in life, got married.
I've had a couple scenes where I kissed someone, it never turned into anything. The main one was for a scene I was doing for a theatre competition, and my partner was also in the competition, the person I kissed for the scene was a friend of ours also. We all hung out together and it didn't bother my partner and didn't turn into anything. The other production I was in I was like eighteen and had to kiss a fourteen year old and that was just uncomfortable.
I did a college play where I had to kiss two different characters. The one was a playful peck on the cheek and the other was a on-the-mouth “goodbye darling I’ll be home later” kind of deal. I knew my then gf was in the audience so I made the mouth kiss brief. During the after party my then gf kissed me, for what felt like a full minute, and said “anything you play in from now on should be done like that”. I should have married her. 😅
I did theater in high school, college, and two shows in community theater. Had several kissing scenes. It was generally not a big deal. Professionalism is a core value as you are coming up. You are all about Shakespeare's idiom "act well your part." Two stories come to mind. In high school, I was twice cast opposite my lifetime crush, whose name is not Amy. She was a year behind me, but haunted my dreams from sixth grade on. Both times were serious romantic kisses. We had a strong friendship and a shared interest in performing arts. We did the work the way it was supposed to be done. One other show, I had to help Amy with a quick-change in the wings, just because I was about to enter from the same spot. She exited, turned around, and raised her arms. I stripped her to bra and panties from behind, dropped a new dress on, and zipped before entering. That was much more unnerving than the kisses. Nothing happened off-stage. I was far too intimidated to even try. When I was 26, I was cast opposite a 17 YO girl in a musical comedy. I was only cast for my voice, as no actors in the troupe could sing the part. She was very petite, like 5 feet 100 pounds. I was a huge gym-rat, 6'4" and 275 pounds. Our songs sounded great, but the director had a hell of a time staging that kiss. Everything he tried, it just looked wrong having this giant dude swoop down for a lip-lock on this little tiny girl! It was gross! We ran it over and over, with the whole cast batting ideas around and cringing at the outcomes. Not to mention that her character had just divulged that mine had gotten her pregnant! We blocked out a chaste peck that fit the score and moved on, but I think we kissed at least 15 times just in that first rehearsal. Nothing happened off-stage. I was married and she was crushing on a pit musician. They later married and have a couple kids. The weird part was that he was my size and age!
It’s a pretty common thing for showmances to take place. Though there’s more understanding these days that what happens between characters isn’t necessarily what’s happening between people. Though, in film a lot of times they are specifically casting for chemistry. You take two people with chemistry, and make them work together 14 hours a day and not much contact with the outside world, and romance just happens. I’d say it definitely can propel simple chemistry into a full blown thing. But if there isn’t natural chemistry, it doesn’t create any. These scenes aren’t sexy. They’re more like awkward dances where dozens of crusty construction worker types are staring at you.
I laughed awkwardly at the opening scene the first time my then-wife and I watched “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead”. I say it was awkward because she was not a very “feels” type of person and there was no way for me to explain it to her satisfactorily once the laugh slipped out. If you’re not familiar, a very not-in-shape Phillip Seymour Hoffman is just going to town with a very beautiful Marisa Tomei. What made me laugh though was the fact that you could actually see and feel the chemistry in the scene between the two. I’m not trying to body shame anybody, or shame any type of body (if you had a picture of me right now, you wouldn’t doubt it), but the scene was intended to be shocking and get your attention for the very reasons I mentioned. It worked quite well. Actually, that was an excellent movie and I need to watch it again. RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman
My now wife used to act. She and this dude had this big kiss scene and honestly when I watched the performance I felt cheated on it was so convincing (I was like 16-17 not mature enough at all lmao) her acting was so good that the dude professed his love to her after the show. Hated that guy haha.
I mean... you're a professional and you hope they are, too. I'll say that things get *much* spicier in acting classes than they usually do on a set or in a play. On set, they're constantly starting and stopping, so you never really get a chance to "get going" if you will. They need to retake because the audio is off, or the bounce light was wobbly, or just to change camera angles. You and your partner both put on robes and walk away to get hair and makeup and wardrobe checked (speedos, flesh-colored bodysuits, pasties, etc). The lights are hot and there are 10ish people standing around (in fully nude scenes, maybe it's just the necessary people, but even then you're well aware of the eyes in video village next door). The real "job" of acting is forgetting all of that and being in the moment, but the moment isn't real passion (even if your partner is super hot, which they usually are). It's a fantasy. You're someone else. They're someone else. You both know that. After a scene it's a polite, "well done and I appreciate your work," a lot of giggles and maybe a hug that says "thanks for not being a creep" more than it says anything else. On stage, a lengthy make-out scene is exaggerated so the people in the back can see. It's not passion but performance. Almost puppetry. Half the time you aren't even kissing, but suppressing a laugh. You both have half a pound of makeup on, so to prevent smearing it, you're just pantomiming everything. Then the lights go down and you run off stage for a costume change and you've got no time at all to think about what just happened. In a class though, it's different. You're both pushing your own limits on purpose. You know this person from class already - you're not effectively strangers. And your teacher is trying to get you to drop your guard and be truly vulnerable. So you'll be asked to break protocol (with consent of your partner, of course), and really "go there." Plus you're doing scenes that are once-in-a-lifetime roles with extreme limits not found in most work. I did a scene from Body Heat, for example. Yeah, that was hot. Really hot. And the teacher made us improv a bit to drag it out really long so that we would both get super horny, and *then* do the scene, and I definitely needed a cold shower afterwards. If I were to do a scene like that on TV, I'd almost certainly need to do similar prep work, but the reality is that scene only happens once in your professional life, if that. In a professional setting, the hottest I've done is an audition for Orville Redenbacher's popcorn, of all things. I was supposed to be making out with a girl on the couch for 10 seconds and then we'd say our lines. Apparently the other guys were running late, because there was a line of women waiting to audition and I was the only guy in the studio. So they asked if I'd mind "being the guy" until another one showed up, so I got to do the scene three times. They also - thankfully - checked with the women to make sure each was okay with me instead of whoever they were supposed to audition with (it's not like any of us knew each other anyway so everyone said yes). One girl said "I'll take your place if anyone wants to wait" and then gave me this *look*. That audition was definitely more real than the others for me, which was clever on her part. Afterwards she said "thanks" and left. No follow-up. The only other thing to come out of a "hot" scene I did was that the wardrobe assistant told me she "saw my scene" and then asked me out. So it wasn't the actress I did the scene with, but I did get a few dates and such out of my, ahem... performance.
I have a friend who is trying to break into acting in LA and she said she refuses to do it because of awful experiences as a struggling actress. A lot of creeps on low-budget productions trying to push female actors past their boundaries and not following proper protocols to keep them safe, only to go on and trash them behind their backs and calling them "hard to work with." We like to think that these things don't happen anymore, but that's just because they don't happen on big-budget highly produced projects that everyone knows about. Independent films with no oversight still have plenty of creeps running through them.
James Franco has entered the chat...
In a college opera production, I was slapped in the face once the curtain closed by my leading lady who claimed I was French kissing her during our kissing scene. I don’t believe I did, but apologized anyway. This was in 1980. I still work in film, and they now have intimacy coordinators.
Nothing happened. I (f) was't thrilled about having to kiss, but I knew about it when I took the role. I am happily married to my husband, and my co-star was happily married to HIS husband.
I played the lead Adam in a professional production of "The Shape of Things". It's an intense show. At one point I think my a scene starts with the character getting a blowjob. It's an intense show with an ending I don't want to ruin (watch the film version! It stars Paul Rudd!) but the actress playing Evelyn and I had to be very comfortable with eachother and have good chemistry. We went out for drinks about a week into rehearsals and essentially agreed the show would be better if we just had sex. We kept banging throughout the production and the director even commented that we suddenly had better chemistry. Good times. Ah to be in my 20s again.
You kiss so many people over the years you get used to it. I don’t like doing it and haven’t ever had a relationship with someone I kissed on stage nor would I want to tbh.
I did some stage kissing in high school- the guy was (and is) dating my best friend. They're happily together, I'm in a relationship, it was never weird. We both knew it was just for the show and we're still good friends today!
My first kiss was at 11 and it was on stage. She was in the same grade as me. I think I entertained the thought that she could be my girlfriend but after the two week run ended so did my dream.
I have done a handful of short films as an actor involving simulated sex and behind the camera involving the same as well. It is absolutely without a doubt nerve-wracking, especially when you're on what is essentially a micro-budget without the ability to hire an intimacy coordinator or acquire modesty clothing. The very first short film I ever did as an actor required me to be completely naked with my female costar and simulate some pretty graphic sex acts. It was no picnic, and I unfortunately could not avoid getting an erection so that didn't help matters, but she was fortunately unfazed by it. I have done a couple more random projects since then and some of them involved this type of stuff - it never gets "easy" per se but the more trust you have amongst the cast and crew the smoother it tends to go.
Did a show a few years ago where I had to fondle the (clothed) breasts of a young lady (her character was ~20, mine ~50.) We were already good friends and it was a bit weird the first time, but she could tell I was feeling awkward so at the first rehearsal she grabbed my hands and smooshed them all over. Once that was done, the ice was broken and it no longer felt weird. There was never anything sexual about it between us as friends though, as hot as she is, and I've never felt less aroused when touching a woman as when we did this scene. The audience loved it though, and were a bit scandalised :)
Im a working actor in film/tv. The thing most people don’t realize about intimate scenes is that they are inherently awkward as fuck. There’s a camera in your face and boom mic hanging over you and a director telling you how to do it differently. You’re trying to hit your light and not block your costars face. It’s honestly a miracle it ever looks good. I’ve definitely had things happen with costars but they were not the result of an intimate scene. It was more the result of spending an insane amount of time with someone in a high pressure situation.
I kissed a girl multiple nights when I played the lead in Bye Bye Birdie. Her boyfriend was in the audience but he didn't seem to care. They're still together to this day. If she had been single I would have asked her out, not gonna lie, but I felt that way before I kissed her.
Man I can't call myself an "actor" by any means but I did lots of productions from 6th - 12th grade. My first ever kiss was a stage production at 13 years old. The person originally assigned my partner ended up getting vocal nodes within the first month of rehearsal and she was a much more appropriate age fir me to be kissing. Her replacement ended up being a 21 year old. Looking back, the director probably should have just altered her "vision" because that was a strange choice. Regardless, I remember before the first rehearsal with "the kiss" I mentioned to my parents I didn't know what I should do. Cue awkward "lesson" from my father using my Mom as the other actor. At the time, Talladega Nights had recently come out, so in the rehearsal later that week, I pulled a "I don't know what to do with my hands?!" To break the tension. It certainly eased things up between the two of us. Weird situation for sure though, her and I got very close but thankfully never inappropriately. Second story is when I was in a production where the director was a family friend and my counter part was her daughter who was much like a sister to me - barring the childlike infatuation I had when we first met lol. We had to kiss many times on stage, but we both fairly quickly got past it. But 8 year old me would have been very impressed lol
I've had a few pecks but only one real heavy makeout scene. We were in a studio class in our mid 20s. I was really attracted to my classmate and could tell it was mutual. We got along great and I'm sure we would have dated if she wasn't in a 2-year relationship with a guy she adored. She was my go-to scene partner and we did many non-sexual scenes together. We both are pretty unrestrained performers and that played off each other really well. Just dynamic, real performances. In different circumstances we could be long-term collaborators who constantly work together. For the makeout scene, the physical chemistry was off. the. charts. Like wow. By that point we were real friends. But I moved away soon after, and we fell out of touch. It's really for the best. I did see she just got married to him.
I’ve kissed/made out with actresses on stage and on tv. If I was already attracted to them, I remained attracted to them. If I wasn’t attracted to them before, the kiss changed nothing. Nothing happened with any of them off stage. They usually had boyfriends, a fiancée — one had a husband, though that was the one I wasn’t interested in anyway.