Jennifer Lawrence Just Shot a Sex Scene with Chris Pratt - Late Night with Seth Meyers
Audio Brief
Show transcript
This episode covers Jennifer Lawrence's experience filming her first sex scene, revealing the significant professional and personal challenges involved.
There are three key takeaways from this discussion.
First, filming intimate scenes is inherently stressful and vulnerable for actors. Even with a friendly co-star like Chris Pratt, anxiety and self-consciousness are common. Lawrence humorously expressed her paranoia about acting "too much" or "too little."
Second, technical demands mean brief on-screen scenes can take a full day to shoot. This complicates coping mechanisms, as Lawrence discovered when her pre-scene whiskey wore off over an eight-hour shoot. She became very drunk on set.
Third, actors often rely on humor and other strategies to navigate uncomfortable professional situations. Lawrence's candid account highlights the awkwardness and logistical realities of such work.
This candid account offers a unique look into the nuanced realities of on-set intimacy in filmmaking.
Episode Overview
- Jennifer Lawrence discusses the anxiety and awkwardness of filming her first-ever sex scene for the movie "Passengers."
- She expresses relief that her co-star was Chris Pratt, whom she describes as a nice and non-threatening person to work with on such an intimate scene.
- Lawrence humorously details her paranoia about how to act during the scene, worrying whether she was doing too little or coming on too strong.
- She reveals that to calm her nerves, she drank whiskey before the shoot, but misjudged the time it would take and ended up getting very drunk on set.
Key Concepts
The conversation explores the professional and personal challenges actors face when filming intimate scenes. It highlights the inherent awkwardness of the situation, the use of coping mechanisms (like alcohol and humor) to manage anxiety, and the logistical realities of filmmaking that can make such scenes even more difficult (e.g., a short scene taking hours to film).
Quotes
- At 00:37 - "Are they gonna be like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa!'" - Jennifer Lawrence humorously expresses her biggest fear about filming a sex scene: being overly aggressive or "too much" for the director and crew.
- At 01:35 - "I was like, 'Okay, I'm going to get hammered for the sex scene'... and then you forget, like, you know, you're at work." - Lawrence explains her decision to drink whiskey to loosen up for the scene, only to realize she'd be on set for eight hours.
Takeaways
- Filming intimate scenes is an inherently stressful and vulnerable experience for actors.
- Even with a friendly and respectful co-star, the process can be filled with anxiety and self-consciousness.
- The technical demands of filmmaking mean that scenes that appear brief on screen can take a full day to shoot, making on-the-spot coping mechanisms difficult to manage.
- Actors often rely on humor to navigate uncomfortable professional situations.
