Featured Image Credit: Pathé
Topics: Film and TV, Sex and Relationships, Celebrity
Emily Brown
Don't Look Up actor Mark Rylance has admitted his regret over making a 2001 movie featuring real oral sex.
Rylance is known by many fans for his roles in family-favorite The BFG, or gripping dramas like Bridge of Spies or The Trial of the Chicago 7.
However, he's taken on a lot of different challenges in his decades-long career, and in 2001 that meant playing a role in a film largely focused on sex.
It might be a jarring realization for younger generations who grew up watching Rylance act out the big friendly giant or even catching him in the action-packed Ready Player One, but it doesn't make it any less true.
Starring alongside Kerry Fox, Rylance played Jay in the movie Intimacy, which follows a failed London musician who meets up with a woman once a week for a series of intense sexual encounters.
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Bet you'll never look at Rylance the same way again, will you?
The film doesn't hold back, and features an unsimulated oral sex scene between Rylance and Fox, as well as a sex scene which left viewers 'in little doubt that penetration has occurred', according to researcher Tanya Krzywinska's analysis.
Understandably, Intimacy proved controversial at the time and today has a middling score of 66 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Some viewers have praised the film as 'imaginative' and 'interesting', but as Rylance looked back on the film in a 2016 Q&A, he made clear it wasn't worth it.
In response to a fan who asked why he chose to do the film, Rylance wrote: "Intimacy was the most difficult job I've ever had. Hanif Kureishi's work and Patrice Chereau's words convinced me it was a very true and vital story about the difficulties people face finding intimacy in a big city like London.
"I know Hanif Kureishi's writing couldn't have been more intimate and revealing, but I found the making of the film and the subsequent publicity and personal attacks very, very painful. And I wish I hadn't made it."
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As for the oral sex scene in particular, Rylance recalled feeling pressure to perform for the camera.
“It soured me on my life two months,” he said, adding: "At that point I didn’t have the confidence as a film actor to say no. Now I think a lot of actors that people say are difficult are actually just being sensible.”
Fox's own partner was among those who shared their thoughts on the film, as he admitted he was a 'jealous guy'.
"It wasn't going to be a trick," he wrote for The Guardian. "If Kerry accepted the role, the sex in Intimacy would be far more demanding than the normal perfunctory erotic interlude of most mainstream movies. To some indefinable degree, this sex would be real."
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If you're intrigued to see what all the fuss is about, you can stream Intimacy on Prime Video now.