Kristen Stewart Is ‘So Sick’ of ‘Run-of-the-Mill’ Sex Scenes Where Actors Do the ‘Just-Go-for-It Simulated Thing’: ‘That’s Not How People Have Sex’
Kristen Stewart is not a fan of many of the sex scenes she watches in movies these days. Ahead of the release of her A24 crime thriller “Love Lies Bleeding,” Stewart told NBC News that she’s “so sick” of methodical movie sex scenes that aren’t remotely close to how sex happens in real life. Stewart and her “Love Lies Bleeding” co-star Katy O’Brian filmed several sex scenes for the new film, directed by Rose Glass. Stewart previously told Variety the film’s sex scenes would “shock people” because of how direct they are.
“The run-of-the-mill, like, just-go-for-it simulated sex thing is so rote,” Stewart told NBC News. “And it’s like actors do have this default thing where, like, ‘Ok, we’re supposed to make out and have sex now.’ That’s just not how people have sex, and I’m so sick of seeing it.”
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Stewart said the sex scenes in “Love Lies Bleeding” were more about “really nailing the details and talking about the physical experience more so than even seeing it, like verbalizing it, talking to each other, sharing space, having it not be cut up into a ton of different shots, it felt like … a really beautiful thing to deliver an experience that was, like, literal instead of faux.”
O’Brian added, “If anyone takes anything from this movie, it’s to ask your partner what they like. You don’t see that in a movie.”
During her Variety cover story in January, Stewart said the characters in the “Love Lies Bleeding” sex scenes “don’t take their clothes off, but this is going to shock people,” adding: “All you ever [usually] see is a dress coming up and a head going down under. I think even hetero sex on film is so rote. You go, ‘Ok, I know what that looks like in movies, that’s what we’ll do,’ because no one actually wants to reveal themselves.”
“Love Lies Bleeding” world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to strong buzz. Variety’s Peter Debruge named it a Critic’s Pick, writing: “The film turns wild and garish, and you may think the film is losing control, yet Rose Glass is fiercely in control of what she’s doing. She’s made a midnight noir that shoots over the top of our expectations but lands where it should, at a place where even valorous people have to go to extremes.”
“Love Lies Bleeding” opens in select theaters March 8 from A24.
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