‘Bridgerton’: Peek behind the scenes of the steamiest sex scenes

Bridgerton has become known for many things, but chief amongst it remains those oh-so-steamy sex scenes that you will never, ever want to watch in front of your parents. But do you ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of the sexiest sex scenes on television? Well, the reason that they look so hot is due to the intimacy coordinator on the set of Bridgerton. 

An intimacy coordinator’s job is to make sure that sex scenes in film, television, or theater is done safely with the emotional & physical well-being on the actors in mind. Basically, every set where there’s a sex scene happening should have one of these people. And if you’re curious about what went behind the scenes on Bridgerton, their intimacy coordinator shared behind-the-scenes details on getting those sex scenes on camera.

Meet the intimacy coordinator

Bridgerton is not the only series that has had an intimacy coordinator on set that lead to major praise for how its sex scenes were handled. Other series that also benefited from this are Sex Education, Normal People, and I May Destroy You. Lizzy Talbot, the intimacy coordinator of Bridgerton, spoke with The Times about practicing these sex scenes for the series. 

Talbot said that, in Bridgerton, she was given as much time to prepare the sex scenes as, say, stunts would have dedicated to them. Rather than just rehearsal & filming on the same day, she said, everyone “turned up prepared and all the choreography was laid out.” Another part of Talbot’s job was to discuss boundaries with each actor before rehearsals or filming in order for everyone to feel comfortable. 

Sex scenes can be silly

With everyone comfortable with each other, there were some silly moments in filming the Bridgerton scenes. Talbot recalled one moment when filming a scene between Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and Sinea Rosso (Sabrina Bartlett) in episode eight, “At one point in the rehearsals, Sabrina slipped and sort of did this fireman’s pole down Johnny to the floor. And I don’t think we recovered for about ten minutes.”

Talbot added, “Production was calling up — ‘Are you finished?’ ‘One minute, I’m regaining the room!’ You’ve sort of got to find the joy in it because it is there inherently — bodies are funny and messy and they don’t always do what we want them to do.” It’s good to know that everyone felt safe enough on the Bridgerton set to laugh when bodies do as bodies do, be weird. 

Apparently, Bailey & Bartlett had some kind of weird mojo around them. Talbot also said that Bailey’s pants split when rehearsing another scene with Bartlett, which is . . . we hope it goes better when rehearsing with Simone Ashley for season 2. 

The fun of filming

One last hilarious behind the scenes story of filming the Bridgerton sex scenes. You know those gorgeous estates where some of those scenes were filmed at? Yeah, they needed to have people watch to make sure the actors didn’t wreck the room. Director Julie Anne Robinson told Deadline:

“When you go into a country house, there is far less flexibility than you can ever imagine, you can’t move the bed, you can’t move the painting, you can’t move the wardrobe, and you have to be quite delicate with the furniture. 

So in the Duke’s bedroom, which was in Castle Howard, [Simon and Daphne] spent a lot of time in that bed, and there were room monitors in the room when we were doing the sex scenes, and they wouldn’t leave.”

Well, it would be awkward if you broke an antique bed while having a acted out sex scene on it. Netflix probably wouldn’t have loved paying for that.

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Bridgerton will begin production for season 2 in Spring 2021.