Aubrey Plaza says a director told her to masturbate on camera
In a recently resurfaced interview with talk show host Conan O'Brien, originally filmed as part of the promotion tour for the 2013 comedy The To Do List, The White Lotus and Parks and Recreation actress Aubrey Plaza revealed that she was instructed to film an un-simulated masturbation scene by director Maggie Carey.
Conan asks Aubrey about a scene in which her The To Do List character is shown masturbating saying; "There's a scene where you pleasure yourself, how do you approach that kind of scene? That's got to be a strange thing to shoot on camera [...] I'm just curious, that's an intense act to simulate on film."
However, Aubrey goes onto clarify that the masturbation wasn't simulated in the scene and that she was asked to intimately touch herself on camera and in front of the crew, contrary to her expectations while reading the script.
"In my head, I envisioned a nice scene where you see my hand slowly go out of frame," she said.
"That's what I thought I was going into, but then when I showed up, the camera was mounted on the ceiling, I was in my underwear and a Clinton t-shirt, and there were a bunch of old men smoking, ya know, the crew guys," she explained. “And then I went and touched myself."
She continued: "I thought I was doing one thing and then when I showed up, it was a whole different thing, it was a full body shot."
"And I asked the director, 'What should I do?' And she said, 'Masturbate, like it says in the script'."
This experience goes contrary to what is now increasingly standard practice in the film industry: the use of prosthetics and modesty barriers to ensure that actors' boundaries are respected.
A decade later from the release of The To Do List, intimacy coordinators - who help choreograph sex scenes and advocate for actors during intimate scenes - are also becoming more in-demand in the industry, for good reason.
Speaking to Cosmopolitan UK, Everything I Know About Love actress Bel Powley explained just how impactful having an intimacy coordinator on set was for her personal safety during sex scenes.
“I'd never worked with [an intimacy co-ordinator] before, and woah it’s the best thing ever,"she said. "All my experiences of doing sex scenes before have been sans intimacy coordinator, and I can’t believe how much better it is. It just creates a completely safe environment. You feel fully protected, and like you can say no to anything…"
She continued; "I've had other experiences where it's felt not great. It comes down to not having someone who is just looking out for you… it’s when a director is more interested in the shot, and how it's going to come out than how the person feels doing it."
"That’s the beauty of having an intimacy coordinator because they are there just for you, the actor.”
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