Sex/Life Actors Share Their Initial Reactions to That Shower Scene
David Mccullough The steamy drama Sex/Life has been causing quite a stir since it started streaming on Netflix, with viewers engrossed by the increasingly complicated and messy love triangle between housewife Billie, her husband, and her ex-boyfriend. And one scene in particular has caught the internet's attention: in episode three, Billie's husband Cooper stalks her ex, Brad, to a gym, even following him into a shower, where he openly stares at the other man's (very large) penis.
It's a moment that showrunner Stacy Rukeyser has described as being a necessary storytelling choice, claiming it illustrates the way Cooper is becoming obsessed with Brad. Mike Vogel, who plays Cooper, recently opened up about his experience of reading the script for that episode, and then shooting the scene.
"I think you read it and you film it and you have a laugh about it," he told E! News this week. "And you don't realize the life of its own that it's going to take on. So, yeah, we've had a lot of fun with it, and others are as well. So, there you go... I think in the best way possible, the way that these sort of things are set up nowadays, especially with an intimacy coordinator, everything has to be planned out, rehearsed, so there's not a hand out of place... You don't see everything happening on the other side of the camera, and that it's set up to literally be the least turn on that it possibly could be."
Adam Demos, who portrays Cooper's love rival and the object of Billie's desires, has previously spoken about the scene, and had a similarly professional approach to filming it: "I was okay with it because you read the script and know what you're getting yourself into from the start, so I don't think you would sign on to a show after reading the scripts and then say no last minute," he said.
Demos went on to explain that the fact that Sex/Life had an intimacy coordinator on set for all scenes involving sex and nudity ensured that the actors always felt safe and comfortable. "We would rehearse it so much that by the time you did it, it was a lot more comfortable than you'd assume," he said. "You discuss everything: hand movements, everything down to the breath. In sex scenes, the breathing is an emotional thing, so you're discussing that journey, but then you're also discussing each individual's comfort level."
