Shooting a sex scene is not easy for actors and actresses, but it is probably a little more comfortable if you get to do it with someone else! However, these stars have all been asked to take matters into their own hands by directors. Read on to find out how these stars managed to go solo on-screen...

Robert Pattinson, 38, is a veteran of on-screen onanism. 'The Batman' actor opened up about THAT scene in Robert Eggers' 'The Lighthouse' In a 2019 interview with Variety, he said: "In the last three or four movies, I’ve got a m*********** scene. I did it in ‘High Life’. I did it in ‘Damsel’. And ‘The Devil All the Time’. I only realized when I did it the fourth time. "But when I saw the clay figure of the mermaid... you’re in a very strange place in your life.”

No one can forget Marnie’s solo scene on ‘Girls’. Allison Williams - the actress who played Marnie - had no issue with it as well as the show's other sex scenes. Allison, 34, told The Huffington Post: “I feel like it's an important scene. It's one of many for Marnie. It's funny because there are moments where - yes, that was challenging, but there are other things that are so hard. "Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you've done a scene 18 times.”

James Gandolfini begrudgingly filmed himself taking matters into his own hands on iconic Mafia series 'The Sopranos’. According to James Andrew Miller’s book ‘Tinderbox: HBO's Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers’, Gandolfini did not want to do it and "threw a tantrum" on set. However, he was eventually convinced, but fortunately for him the scene ended up on the cutting room floor.

‘Sex and the City’ character Samantha Jones enjoyed a very open and free love life in the HBO series. Played by Kim Cattrall, 66, fans saw Samantha having some self-care sessions during the show.

Known as Daphne on ‘Bridgerton’, actress Phoebe Dynevor, 27, talked with Glamour about the challenges of shooting sex scenes. Phoebe is a fan of having a dance partner rather than circling around on her own! For her, rehearsing with co-star Regé Jean-Page made her feel more comfortable when the time came. However, when she had to go solo things were more complicated. She said: "On my own, it's a different thing. The stage directions are very specific: You have to have perform having a... It's a difficult thing to rehearse, which means you don't. You just do it."

Gaspar Noé’s erotic drama ‘Love’, required actor Karl Glusman indulge in fictional onanism. The 35-year-old actor told Variety how unexpected and awkward the situation was, as it was basically the very first thing he filmed. He said: "The first day of shooting, he (Gaspar) said, 'It's time for your big close up!' He lowered the camera to my waist level and got the focus right. And he said, 'All right, take your pants off!' The scene was on the first day of shooting. That was my ice breaker."

One of Natalie Portman’s most acclaimed movies is ‘Black Swan’. Audiences will never forget the scene where Natalie’s alter ego, ballerina Nina Sayers, is indulging in some private time when her mother enters the room. In an interview with MTV News, Natalie herself described how uncomfortable it was to film that particular scene. She said: "So disgusting! It was akin to the experience of watching the movie with my parents sitting next to me, let me tell you."

Penn Badgley, 36, has had to shoot multiple self-pleasure scenes for his hit series ‘You’. Speaking on his podcast ‘Podcrushed’, Penn revealed that he got some worrying direction as to what he needed to do. He said: “Every time I’ve done those scenes… I’ve always gotten the note to make it less creepy. They say like, ‘Close your eyes or go faster or go slower.’ I’m like, ‘What? This man is murdering people, and he’s m*********** in the street. "You’re saying I’m making it creepy? How is it I’m the one making it creepy?’”

In 2012, Amy Adams stood in front of the camera alongside the late Philip Seymour Hoffman for Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘The Master’. For one of the scenes, Amy’s character Peggy has to please Philips’s character Lancaster, something which Amy talked about in an interview with Vanity Fair. After being asked how she managed to shoot it, Amy answered: “Quickly, thankfully! The night before we shot, Paul’s like, ‘I want you guys to come to the bathroom so I can show you how I was thinking of working it,’ which was so smart. Thank you, Paul, for being so collaborative. He took us into the space so we could visualize it, and then explained how he was going to shoot it. "So we just worked out where he would have to put the camera, and it was very technical (…) We only had to shoot it two or three times.”

After spending several years out of the spotlight, Brendan Fraser, 54, celebrated an acclaimed comeback in Darren Aronofsky’s film ‘The Whale’. One of the first scenes shows his obese character Charlie watching content while trying to please himself. While Fraser has not talked about that scene in particular, he has talked about changing social standards by playing a man who is so obese he can barely move or breath, but is still a man with urges and desires. In an interview on ‘The Graham Norton Show’, Brendan said: “When the costume came off, I could still feel the undulation and I grew to appreciate how strong physically and emotionally a person of that size has to be.”