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Sex scenes are a notoriously tricky beast, and most actors would agree one of the most dreaded parts of the job. Even the most experienced of stars have tales of accidental flashing, on-set injuries and good old-fashioned awkwardness.
The obvious incidents are ones such as when Henry Cavill admitted he got “over-excited” while filming a steamy scene for The Tudors, or when a then-underage Christopher Mintz-Plasse had to film his Superbad character losing his virginity... while his real-life mother watched.
Other incidents are ones you might not expect, such as rapper Gucci Mane falling asleep while his on-screen partner was on top of him during Spring Breakers because he was exhausted after performing a concert. Or the time Emilia Clarke had a laughing fit because her Game of Thrones co-star Jason Momoa swapped his “modesty sock” for a fluffy pink one.
Then there are the actors who can’t forget the fact that they’re working with someone they consider a friend, or are distracted because the director happens to be their real-life partner. For Kate Winslet , both issues arose when she worked on Revolutionary Road with co-star Leonardo DiCaprio and her then-husband Sam Mendes. She won a Golden Globe for her performance, so hopefully she thinks it was worth it.
Click through the gallery below to see the 21 most awkward sex-scene mishaps:
Show all 21 1 /21The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids (2011) Bridesmaids opens on a booty call between Kristen Wiig’s character and Jon Hamm’s, and involves Wiig getting thrown around a lot by the six-foot-two actor. “I am not a small human being,” he told Playboy in 2012. “I weigh at least 200 pounds… and Wiig is a twig, she’s a skinny little thing. I told her, ‘Just punch me in the side if I’m hurting you.”
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio – Revolutionary Road (2008) Sex scenes are awkward enough without adding the fact that your partner is the director. In this case, Kate Winslet’s then-husband Sam Mendes was instructing her and her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. “I just kept saying, ‘This is too weird,’” she told The Telegraph. “And Leo was like, ‘Oh get over it.’ And I’m going, ‘Yeah a little reminder. You’re my best friend. He’s my husband. This is a bit weird.’” Hopefully Winslet now feels it was worth it, as she won a Golden Globe award for Best Actress for her performance.
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan – Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan had a notorious lack of chemistry in the critically loathed Fifty Shades series, but maybe it can be blamed on the torturous hours they had to spend simulating sex. “It’s pretty tedious,” Johnson told Interview magazine. “We’re not having actual sex. But I’ve been simulating sex for seven hours straight right now, and I’m over it.”
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Robert Pattinson and Julianne Moore – Map to the Stars (2014) Sex scenes are supposed to be hot and steamy, but things got a little too hot for Robert Pattinson while he was filming with Julianne Moore for Map to the Stars. “It was so hot in Toronto [where the movie was filmed] and she’s one of these people – she doesn’t sweat at all,” Pattinson told Heat magazine. “I sweat a lot. I was literally trying to catch drops of sweat to stop them hitting her back! Afterwards she was like, ‘Are you having a panic attack?’ It was so embarrassing.”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Sienna Miller and Ben Affleck – Live by Night (2017) When you’re shooting a sex scene with someone you view as a brother or sister figure, it’s bound to feel a little awkward. For Sienna Miller, working on the crime drama Live by Night with Ben Stiller was fine until it came to the bedroom scenes. “It’s hysterical,” she told E! News. “There was a lot of stupid giggling. He was very professional – I am not, but he is. Obviously by the time nine hours of it has gone past, I was shaking with tears running down my face. You have to laugh.”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Superbad (2007) Those awkward teenage years provide the backdrop for Judd Apatow’s hit comedy Superbad, but it’s unlikely actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse thought it would result in an awkward moment of his own. Because he was underage when he played McLovin, his mother had to accompany him on set – including for a scene where his character loses his virginity. “I had to fake intercourse in front of her,” he told GQ. Yikes.
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Jason Momoa and Emilia Clarke – Game of Thrones (2011) Game of Thrones drew a lot of criticism for its portrayals of sex, but it sounds like the cast had fun filming at least a few of them. Emilia Clarke, who is now firm friends with her former co-star Jason Momoa, went into hysterics when he decided to switch a normal modesty sock for a fluffy pink one.
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Ryan Reynolds and Olivia Wilde – The Change-Up (2011) Ryan Reynolds admitted to Jay Leno that he accidentally removed co-star Olivia Wilde’s nipple pasties while shooting The Change-Up, then tried to put them back on again. “She has those pasties on, but she’s drawn those adorable little smiley faces on them,” he said. “And I forget every line in the scene – not just from this movie but from every other movie I’ve done. At some point she takes my hands and puts them on her breasts… I take my hands away and I look down at my hands and there’s two frickin’ smiley faces on them and I have no idea what to do. And I, reflexively, like an idiot, just put my hands right back on her breasts.”
(Photo credit should read ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Gucci Mane – Spring Breakers (2013) While most actors would worry about getting “over-excited”, Gucci Mane had the opposite problem. The rapper, who was so tired by the time he arrived on set from a concert in St Petersburg, he fell asleep during a sex scene. Director Harmony Korine told Vulture he blamed it on the weed Mane and his entourage had been smoking all day. “I’d never in my life filmed a sex scene when the dude was sleeping… and she was on top of him for a good 45 minutes,” he said.
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Henry Cavill – The Tudors (2007) One of the most talked-about sex scene mishaps emerged when Henry Cavill admitted he got “over-excited” while shooting a scene for The Tudors. He told Men’s Fitness: “A girl had to be on top of me, and I hadn’t rearranged my ‘stuff’ into a harmless position. She’s basically rubbing herself all over me and um, it got a bit hard. I had to apologise profusely afterward. It’s not great when you’re in a professional acting environment and somebody gets [excited] is it? No, not acceptable.”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal – Love & Other Drugs (2010) Anne Hathaway experienced one of her most embarrassing moments while shooting Love & Other drugs with Jake Gyllenhaal when she accidentally flashed the entire crew. “I have to remove my trench coat and be nude underneath,” she told Hollywood Life. “And I thought we were filming, but it turned out we were just rehearsing and I got unnecessarily [unclothed] in front of a lot of people!”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Jesse Metcalfe and Eva Longoria – Desparate Housewives (2012) Jesse Metcalfe revealed he got a little overexcited in his gardener's first ever sex scene with Eva Longoria’s character. “We were rehearsing," he told radio station 106.5 Sacramento, "and then the director was like, 'OK, get out of bed, we have to reset the set,’ and I was like, 'I need a minute.'"
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Kristen Schaal and Will Forte (2015) There’s nothing like a fart to ruin the mood, and no one knows that better than Kristen Schaal who let one rip on Will Forte. "Carol is aggressively and sexually talking to Phil – that's a lot of diaphragm work, which is also in the danger zone of where the beans are,” she revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyers. "Finally, I just looked at Will and I was like, 'I’m gonna fart on you.' And I did. If you fart on your scene partner it's the most intimate you can get."
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Allison Janney and Michael Lerner – Life During Wartime (2010) Allison Janney’s first ever sex scene was with Michael Lerner and it led to the latter being taken to hospital. “We had to have sex up against a wall and they started spraying us with glistening stuff to make us look sweaty, but no one seemed to realise that we were standing on a marble floor,” she told People. “They said action and he… pulled me up against the wall and his feet slipped out from under him and he went crashing down on the floor.”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio – Wolf of Wall Street (2014) Having sex on a pile of money, as Margot Robbie discovered, can really do some damage to your back. Recalling a scene she filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio, she told The Daily Beast: “I got a million paper cuts on my back from all that money! It’s not as glamorous as it sounds… when I got up off the bed, I turned around to get my robe and everyone gasped. I said, ‘What is it?’ And they said, ‘You look like you’ve been whipped a million times. Your back is covered in a thousand red scratches.’”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt – Passengers (2016) When Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt went in for their characters’ first kiss, their bulky spacesuit chest plates got in the way a little. "We didn't know that was going to happen,” Lawrence told USA Today. “So they called 'Action’ and we went to kiss. And it was like, Donk! Donk! Our heads couldn’t reach each other. We had a good laugh about it, and we incorporated it into the movie."
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Paul Rudd and Aisling Brea – Living With Yourself (2019) A slight wardrobe mishap made an intimate scene between Aisling Bea and Paul Rudd pretty awkward. "We had a very funny moment when the nipple covers I was wearing slipped off mid-way through a sex scene.” Bea told Sunday World magazine. “I guess they were just a bit sweaty, and I looked down and they were gone.”
CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images
The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Margot Robbie and Alexander Skarsgard – The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Director David Yates revealed that Margot Robbie – who played Jane opposite Alexander Skarsgård's Tarzan – may have got a bit carried away during the filming of a sex scene. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he said he asked Robbie to slap Skarsgård while their characters were making love. “The only bruise he picked up during the entire shoot was probably that punch from Margot. Which says a lot about her feistiness."
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman – No Strings Attached (2011) A slight wardrobe mishap made an intimate scene between Aisling Bea and Paul Rudd pretty awkward. "We had a very funny moment when the nipple covers I was wearing slipped off mid-way through a sex scene.” Bea told Sunday World magazine. “I guess they were just a bit sweaty, and I looked down and they were gone.”
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Dave Franco and Halston Stage – Bad Neighbors (2014) Unfortunately for Dave Franco, the morning of his sex scene with Halston Stage he woke up with a spotty bottom. "I had a giant pimple on my ass... It sucks, right?” he told E! News. “I had to go to the makeup artist and be like, 'Can we go in the other room and you'll put makeup literally on my ass?' So that was that."
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The 21 most awkward sex scene mishaps Adam Brody and Kristen Bell – House of Lies (2012) Kristen Bell was pregnant when filming her sex scenes with Adam Brody, an experience the latter found very “awkward”. He told E! News: "It was very, very, very awkward for, I would say, about five minutes and then it was awkward in how normal it was. We were sandwiching her child in-between our stomachs."
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