This is how âNormal Peopleâ made some of TVâs steamiest sex scenes

Before they spent five months playing lovers, the young stars of âNormal Peopleâ never so much as kissed.
Perhaps that doesnât seem odd. Auditions donât often require actors to prove their connection through a full-blown make-out session. But if youâve already binged the 12-episode BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooneyâs chart-topping novel âNormal People,â itâs hard to believe that Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal just ended up naturally having that much physical chemistry.
âNormal Peopleâ isnât about sex. Itâs a quiet relationship drama that follows two Irish teenagers, Marianne and Connell, as they fall in and out of love over the course of their high school and collegiate years. But their intimacy is an integral part of the romance, and the way itâs depicted on screen is far more vulnerable and unhurried than in most Hollywood productions. Yes, thereâs full-frontal nudity, but more impactful are the prolonged stares, breathy kisses and subtle skin grazes loaded with meaning.
So how do you make sex scenes between two total strangers â who swear, just like post-âA Star Is Bornâ Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, that theyâve never dated â look so real?
Hiring an intimacy coordinator, for starters. Lenny Abrahamson, who executive produced the series and also directed its first six episodes, admits he was initially hesitant when the idea was floated. He didnât want Ita OâBrien â who has also coached actors on Netflixâs âSex Educationâ and HBOâs âGentleman Jackâ â to come between him and the cast.
âYouâve got a very clear vision in your head, and my fear was that an intimacy coordinator would come in, it would all flow away from me and by the end theyâd be swinging from the chandeliers,â acknowledges Abrahamson, best known for directing the 2015 film âRoom.â âBut having her there did loads of important things, even down to the really practical, like: How is it possible to make something look real, and at the same time give the actors the comfort that it isnât?â
In adapting her novel âNormal Peopleâ for Hulu, Sally Rooney and director Lenny Abrahamson tried to âtap into the silence of the bookâ to capture its essence.

Of course, when Edgar-Jones and Mescal tried out for the show, both were made aware of what it would entail. The 21-year-old actress had âextensive conversationsâ with her mother before signing on to the project, ultimately deciding she was comfortable with the nudity because it was âincidental.â
âWhen Connell comes in from the shower, he just happens to be putting his shorts on,â she explains via video chat from her home in north London, where she was quarantined with her boyfriend and two flatmates. âWhether the camera captures [his nudity] or not, there is an honesty there of what a real relationshipâs like.â
Mescal felt more at ease after an early discussion with the director in which he was reassured that Abrahamson wouldnât be âdidactic or forcing me into doing anything.â
âI think I told them,â recalls Abrahamson, âthat, yes, thereâs a contractual dimension so people know where they stand, but whatever it says in those, itâs not, like, âOh, Iâm allowed to show you guys full-frontal nude, so Iâm just gonna do that randomly.ââ He showed the potential cast nude photographs taken by Nan Goldin to give them an example the of âun-exploitative, beautifulâ approach he wanted to emulate.
OâBrien weighed in during the casting process too, and felt confident that Mescal and Edgar-Jones could sell a connection despite the fact that she hadnât watched them lock lips. âWhat youâre looking for is the electricity when theyâre apart,â she says. âWhen you gradually bring those two magnets together, thatâs what we can choreograph. Thatâs what chemistry is. Itâs not about can two people actually kiss.â

Once the roles were set, OâBrien met with the two leads to explain her process: Forming intimacy guidelines that create a professional structure so the actors can separate themselves from the characters. Her three guiding principles? Open communication and transparency, agreement and consent of touch, and clear choreography.
During a two-week rehearsal period, the group worked through the most vital intimate scenes âwhile we were still wearing sweatpants,â Edgar-Jones says. Theyâd choreograph any lovemaking, mapping out the shapes of their bodies so that the cameras could catch all the correct angles.
âOne of the things about making it realistic is that itâs about supporting your weight in ways that make it look like your bodies are in connection,â says Mescal, who is spending lockdown by himself in his apartment, save for a cardboard cutout of his family that his mother recently mailed to him. âMy shoulders were incredibly strong at the end of the process, because youâre holding yourself up a lot of the time to give the right illusion.â
When shooting commenced, OâBrien would start each day by discussing with Abrahamson his vision for the dayâs scenes. Then sheâd circle back with Edgar-Jones and Mescal to run through any of their concerns before contacting wardrobe and double-checking that modesty garments like genitalia pouches or flesh-colored G-strings were in place. Sheâd also check in to make sure a triangle-shaped pillow was on set to place between the actorsâ genitalia.

She left the majority of the directing to Abrahamson, chiming in only when a scene didnât ring anatomically true. âLike on the first day, the actors were having spooning sex,â OâBrien says. âAnd I said âYou have to move down further, because otherwise it looks like youâre having anal sex instead of vaginal sex.â
Although the leads had the previously outlined physical beats to guide them, âit wasnât like, âRaise your right hand now and then count to three,ââ notes Abrahamson. Instead of feeling boxed-in by the choreography, Edgar-Jones says it gave her an avenue to express herself more freely. Without worrying where she had to place her hands, she says, she could focus more fully on her acting.
âWe had agreed where hands or lips could touch,â adds Mescal, âand there was a freedom both me and Daisy felt to express those impulses in the scene. It wasnât regimented. If Lenny had turned to us and said, âThis is the sex scene, try to make it feel real, wing it,â then I think Daisy and I would feel incredibly insecure. Because suddenly weâre expressing our own sexual preferences, and thatâs not interesting.â
âNormal Peopleâ also deals with how one obtains sexual consent. When Marianne is in college â and not seeing Connell romantically â she gets into a BDSM relationship with a new boyfriend. Even though she has asked for the power-play dynamic in the bedroom, itâs implied from the characterâs body language that she isnât actually enjoying it.
âI think it was important to show that Marianne is a vulnerable person, but sheâs not just a victim in those scenes,â Edgar-Jones says. âAnd I do think thereâs a really interesting conversation to be had about that: What is consent, and does it have to just be a verbal thing? It should also be sounding each other out and a constant dialogue, but itâs a tricky thing where the lines get blurred when someone asks for a specific kind of sex.â
âMrs. Americaâ depicts the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. Weâre fact-checking its historical accuracy, episode by episode.

While Abrahamson is clear he doesnât feel the show is a âtemplate for how real life should be,â he says heâs proud of the way the show handles intimacy. (To make the slow, heavy breathing as realistic as possible, he had the actors record breath tracks in post-production.) And although his children, ages 8 and 12, are currently too young to watch the show, heâs looking forward to showing it to them when theyâre older as a âway of understanding how positive and incredible it can be.â
âHow much stuff has been made which is kind of lazy or titillating or pornographic about sex and intimacy?â he continues. âThat makes it all the more important that you can reclaim it and show it truthfully and honestly as part of life. Good sex â what a fantastic thing. And why should we be embarrassed about it? ... Sex feeds into a general sense of a personâs happiness â or lack of it â and is probably one of the central things in a human life. And yet in drama we go: It either has to be problematic or shocking or sensationalized or whatever. How about weâre actually able to talk about it in all its glory and difficulty?â
Which is all well and good, except for for the fact that âNormal Peopleâ is being released in the midst of a pandemic when singles cannot, in fact, have sex with anyone outside their shelter-in-place cohort.
âThere should be a health warning on [the show], I think,â Abrahamson says with a laugh, noting heâs glad to be an âold, married fatherâ living with his wife and two kids in Ireland at the moment. âYou may need to have someone lock the door from the outside and stop you from running out and trying to find an open bar.â
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