Actress defends filming real-life sex scene for film that caused major public backlash

An actress has defended filming a real-life sex scene for a movie that caused a lot of public outcry.

Kerry Fox starred in the erotic movie Intimacy alongside actor Mark Rylance back in 2001.

The spicy film is based on the book by Hanif Kureishi and tells the story of a failed musician who meets with a woman once a week for 'a series of intense sexual encounters to get away from the realities of life'.

But, things take a turn when the musician decides he wants to know more about the woman he has been meeting.

At the time of its release, there was a lot of speculation that an oral sex scene in the film was unsimulated, which essentially refers to sex scenes in films where the actors are actually having intercourse with one another.

Fox's husband Alexander Linklater revealed as much in a lengthy column for The Guardian.

"It wasn't going to be a trick," he wrote. "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."

Fox starred in the movie alongside Rylance (Mike Marsland/WireImage)

Meanwhile, her co-star Rylance, who was married to his late wife Claire van Kampen at the time, says he regrets doing the movie altogether.

But Fox has no regrets and described her performance in Intimacy as one of her 'best pieces of work'.

Speaking to the Metro a decade on from the film's release, Fox was asked if she regretted the real sex scene.

Telling the journalist - who had admitted that they hadn't seen the film - to 'watch it', the actress went on: "Then you'd know I absolutely have no regrets and it's one of the best pieces of work I've ever done."

Mark Rylance and his wife, Claire van Kampen (Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)

Elsewhere, in a separate interview, Rylance said he felt pressured to perform for the camera.

“It soured me on my life two months,” he said in a 2016 Q&A.

"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."

In the wake of the 'painful' publicity that followed the film, Rylance went on to describe Intimacy as 'the most difficult job I've ever had'.