IN HOLLYWOOD, I am considered a prude. Perhaps the main reason is that I’m not a comedian who speaks frankly about my sexuality, making me the only woman in Hollywood who is not speaking frankly about her sexuality. You can’t walk down the street or be on any social media platform for more than nine seconds before an actress mentions how it’s imperative that she and everyone else “free the nips.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please Google it. You wouldn’t believe me if I explained it here. This is the world I live in.
People may also think I’m a prude because my television show, though about dating and romance, is not really about sex, like, say, Sex and the City was. That’s because my show is on a major network and you can’t show all that stuff, and also because my dad is alive and I would like to have lunch with him without feeling mired in dishonor.
The truth is I’m a weird mix of fearful New England prig and repressed pervert. On the one hand, I think sex is private and special, and I would rather die than ever write or talk about my sex life in any public way. And on the other, I am an unabashed lover of watching sexy situations on-screen, both as a viewer and, lately, as a participant on my own show.
My buddy Mark Duplass opening the door without a shirt on for a sexy interaction
So, there must be lots of other actors who love doing sex scenes too, right? Wrong. If you interview any actor about having to do sex scenes, you always get the same answer: they “hate” doing them.
It’s actually kind of annoying; you’re there for twelve hours; it’s exhausting.
—Justin Timberlake
There’s like one hundred and fifty crewmen watching and you see each other’s bits and pieces. The whole thing is just wrong.
—Mila Kunis
They’re hard to do. You’re doing things that you’re supposed to do with only certain people in your life.
—Kerry Washington
I am here to tell you that they are all lying. Every last one of ’em. Obviously, on-screen sex is not actual penetrative sex, but as any religious high-schooler will tell you, simulating sex can be pretty damn enjoyable as well.
And why shouldn’t it be? You get to crawl around in a bed with another person you either a) already know really well or b) are getting to know better in the most cozy and intimate way possible. Yes, it is true that an entire room of people is watching you when you shoot a sex scene. To that, I say: the more, the merrier! Most of those people are artists whose job it is to make sure your physical imperfections are cloaked in mysterious shadows. By the end of the shooting day, you’ll wish there were more people there.
Earlier this year I realized that, for a long time, I had been completely breaking the rules of stage kissing. I learned that among professional actors the tacit rule of on-screen kissing is “open mouth, no tongue.” In 1985, during the AIDS crisis, the Screen Actors Guild even made this their official policy. I, however, became a professional actor on The Office at the height of my early-twenties boy craziness, and the only person I was kissing was my best friend, B. J. Novak. We did not stage kiss because we didn’t know any better. It was just lights, camera, tongue-dance.
Anders Holm and I make out naked in a shower with thirty people standing two feet away.
So when I created The Mindy Project and I was suddenly acting in all these romantic situations, it never occurred to me to ask my scene partners if they minded tongue kissing. I just kissed as I would kiss naturally, and they always reciprocated. If they were psyched or felt bullied, I will never know, because no one ever mentioned it to me as an issue. So, if my math is correct, I have broken SAG rules about twenty-one times. And you know what? If they take away my SAG card because of it, I can only say: it was worth it.
I’ve had the privilege of making out with dozens of actors on camera. Once I had to do a particularly involved make-out with an actor who happens to be a married acquaintance of mine. The shot was complicated and the director spent hours shooting it over and over. The sheer number of takes made me feel self-conscious about my ability to make out in an authentically sexy way. Between takes, in a moment of insecurity, I turned to my scene partner and whispered: “God, this is taking forever. Am I doing this terribly?”
He looked me in the eye, took my hand, and gently guided it to the front of his pants where I felt the unmistakable presence of an erection. My jaw dropped. He winked at me, said, “I think you’re doing just fine,” and dropped my hand.
We never spoke of it again. It is, to this day, the sexiest thing that has ever happened to me.
So why are all your favorite actors and actresses lying about enjoying sex scenes? Well, a couple of reasons:
1) Creepiness. Anyone who announces they love filming sex scenes is going to be perceived as some kind of weirdo who gets their jollies off at work. No one wants to act with them, as honest (and, frankly, as entertaining) as they sound.
2) Vulnerability. People don’t like to admit they loved shooting a sex scene, because, like sex, what if the other person didn’t like it that much? I once complimented my friend Seth Rogen on his on-screen kissing skills. Then later, while we were waiting during a lighting setup, I shyly asked him what he thought of mine, and he took a moment to think, and replied: “To be honest, I don’t really remember.” That’s what Seth Rogen thinks of my kissing. So good he didn’t remember it fifteen minutes later.
Seth Rogen: Great kisser, nice energy, beard not too scratchy
3) Significant Others. Actors are the only people in the world who are allowed to essentially stray from their marriages physically and there are no repercussions. Zero. In fact, if they’re especially good at sex scenes, thousands of people will want to steal them away. If you are the unlucky spouse of an actor, the last thing you want to hear is that, in addition to him getting to fake-cheat on you by virtue of the most unfair loophole of all time, he also really enjoyed it.
4) Integrity. In kabuki times, actors were literally prostitutes, and we have spent centuries trying to distance ourselves from that profession. Occasionally we have setbacks, like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. But in general, it’s very important for us not to seem like we are being financially compensated for sex acts. People already think acting is the world’s easiest and most frivolous job, besides Miss Golden Globe. So we all have this tacit agreement to keep our traps shut about the world’s best job perk.
That is why I, a noted Hollywood bad boy with nothing to lose, must be the person to tell the truth. Sex scenes are the tits. You’re welcome.