Hear John Turturro’s Odd, But Effective, Sex Scene Direction
With Game of Thrones on break, John Turturro’s new HBO series, The Night of, has some massive shoes to fill – both in ratings and nudity. “Are there any dragons in this one? Do you get naked in this?” Stephen Colbert asked the actor on Tuesday’s The Late Show. Turturro promised enough “knives and nakedness” to soothe Thrones fans. This launched a hilarious discussion about his previous sex scenes – both as an actor and director.
“A sex scene is really hilarious because it’s usually so un-sexy,” Turturro told the host. “It’s like being in the dentist’s office, really.” But the film veteran once discovered how to make sex scenes titillating while working behind the camera – by filming the action one actor at a time.
“One time I directed a sex scene in a movie – with James Gandolfini and Kate Winslet – and they were going to be too inhibited,” he said, referring to 2005 musical romantic-comedy Romance & Cigarettes. “So I decided to take James out of the scene and put Kate on a bouncy ball. [imitates sex] The problem was when we did James, how to connect them. So I took Kate’s wig, and as James was having sex, I took Kate’s wig in front of the camera.
“I have to say, if you watch the scene, it’s really sexy because they’re completely free because they’re not together,” Turturro boasted, earning the Colbert crack, “I’ve had that kind of sex, too.”