Lizzy Caplan says intimate scenes ‘back in the day’ involved men ‘tying up their parts’

Actor Lizzy Caplan has said intimate scenes ‘back in the day’ involved men ‘tying up their parts’, having opened up about what it was like to film intimate scenes for new TV series Fatal Attraction.

Caplan stars in the new TV adaptation of the 1987 erotic thriller, which featured Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.

Inevitably, Caplan – who plays Alex Forrest alongside Joshua Jackson’s Dan Gallagher – found herself at the centre of some pretty heated scenes, something that will come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen the raunchy original movie, which follows a married man as he has a brief affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end, in turn becoming obsessed with him.

Thankfully, though, a lot has changed in the film industry in recent years, particularly when it comes to how sex sequences are approached.

Speaking about the shift in a new interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Caplan said shooting these moments used to be ‘terrifying’, but that these days actors are given much more direction, thanks to the introduction of intimacy coordinators.

NBC

She said: “Back in the day, when you would do an intimate scene, you had a rough idea of what it was. It’ll say in the script like, ‘They make love’ or ‘They make love on a bed surrounded by candles’.

“They might tell you about things in the room, but they don’t tell you much about what you’re doing.

“And if there’s a man in the scene, they would tie up his parts in a flesh-coloured sock, and the woman would put an adhesive patch on, and they’d be like, ‘Good luck!’

“And then you just go for it.”

Caplan continued: “It was kind of terrifying to think about it like that now. Now, the way you do it is the script will be the same level of vague like, ‘they make love’, and then an intimacy coordinator will come in and will write out a very detailed email – like, granular detail of what every single moment of what that might look like.

“And then you talk about it a little bit, and then you send that document to your lawyers and your agents – which, no matter how old you are, still feels like sending it to your parents – and then you approve it and you go and shoot the scene.”

The actor went on to share a snippet of her intimacy coordinator’s notes from a scene on Fatal Attraction, leaving host Jimmy Fallon in hysterics.

NBC

Reading the notes out loud, she said: “Both Josh and Lizzy will be insinuating nudity and given modesty wear and padding for comfort and desensitization.

“When Lizzy is on top of him, we will see her bare back and partial topless nudity – her right side breast. Her left breast will be masked by his arm positioning, covered.

“When Dan is on top of Alex, we will see his buttocks. And finally, the sheets will cover most rear nudity, but we may see partial buttock on both Josh and Lizzy.”