British actress Joanna Lumley said she’s uncomfortable doing sex scenes and believes many other Hollywood stars are as well.
The 77-year-old actress made her opinions known during an interview with The Guardian. Lumley has had a decades-long career, winning two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the hit BBC sitcom “Absolutely Fabulous.” She also appeared in films such as “James and the Giant Peach” (1996), “Ella Enchanted” (2004), “Corpse Bride” (2005), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), and “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” (2016).
The British star described on-screen simulated sex as “revolting” and uncomfortable.
“Oh, everybody stripped,” Lumley said. “Everybody had to, from Diana Rigg to Julie Christie, we all had to take at least our tops off in something. It was standard and it was this, ‘You’re not a real actress unless you take your top off.’ Nobody liked it, like nobody likes intimate kissing or sex scenes.”
“Everybody knows it’s pretending and it’s kind of soft porn, and now we’ve got coaches to teach us how to do it,” the actress said. “Thank God I’m beyond it now.”
Lumley said she believes intimacy coordinators, or people hired specifically to coach actors for sex scenes, are “probably a nice thing.” But she’s still convinced movies and TV shows should just abandon simulated sex altogether.
“I think they’re revolting, I don’t know why people write them and I don’t know why we watch them,” the British actress said. “We wouldn’t have films of people sitting on the loo. There are some things which are private.”
The BAFTA award winner also discussed how times were different during the height of her career.
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“Also remember, the world … We [had been] four girls sharing a flat but we weren’t allowed to sign the lease – a man had to,” Lumley told The Guardian. “Men were always paid more, always top dog, and you could be sacked from a film if you didn’t take your top off. So then a lot of people go, ‘Shall I just take my top off and remain in the film?’ It was a different world.”
