Deep Water director Adrian Lyne admits to being a "cheerleader" for actors while they're filming sex scenes
"There’s something awful about actors going at it in total silence," Lyne says
Adrian Lyne is considered one of the leading men in erotic thrillers, with his repertoire of work including Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, and most recently Hulu’s Deep Water starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. The director now confirms that one of his methods to shooting the perfect, intimate sex scene is hollering and cheering on the actors as they film.
In her 2019 memoir Inside Out, Demi Moore shared a little insight into this strategy. Moore wrote that while they were filming with co-star Woody Harrelson for Indecent Proposal, Lyne “literally didn’t stop talking, practically hollering, the whole time.”
“Lyne would cry things like ‘Fucking raunchy!’ and ‘Oh god, got a boner on that!’” Moore wrote. “Here was this guy getting all sweaty and worked up, yelling about boners. But once I got used to it, I saw its advantages: having Adrian carry on that way took the focus off my own awkwardness.”
This rowdy rooting on was, in fact, not limited to Indecent Proposal. In a recent interview with The Independent, Lyne discusses Moore’s memoir and admits he “always act[s] as a kind of cheerleader” while shooting sex scenes.
“But I’ve always thought there’s something awful about actors going at it in total silence. Or very glumly, and then wondering whether their arse looks good, or if their thighs are sagging,” Lyne continues. “So I always act as a kind of cheerleader. Sometimes I’ll go, ‘It’s good! It’s good!’”
He adds, “You sense their confidence mounting, so it’s a better scene. I do that a lot.”
We don’t know about y’all, but nothing sounds more relaxing than shooting a sex scene with an old British man yelling about boners in the background. Sounds totally, totally, erotic. You can see his latest work in Deep Water which is streaming now on Hulu.