With a new season of “Bridgerton” comes new leads and sex scenes, but many people aren’t familiar with how those sex scenes are created.
During season two, Jonathan Bailey (who plays Anthony Bridgerton) opened up to Radio Times, alluding to certain tools and techniques that make the sex scenes in “Bridgerton” happen safely. “There are new tricks to the trade – little cushions – and it’s amazing what you can do with a half-inflated netball,” Bailey said in his interview.
Season three lead Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington, also opened about her experience filming the sex scenes. In an interview with Stylist, she said she worked closely with the “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot to create the scene. “There’s one scene where I’m very naked on camera, and that was my idea, my choice. It just felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering,” she said.
PS previously spoke to Talbot following the first season about all the behind-the-scene sex secrets of the “Bridgerton” series. Here’s what you don’t know about those horny moments you love to watch.
Experts Featured in This Article
Lizzy Talbot is an intimacy coordinator and founder of Intimacy for Stage and Screen, a company that advocates for safe intimacy for the stage and screen.
The “Bridgerton” Sex-Scene Secrets
Actors do use balls and pillows between them during sex scenes but not netballs.
It turns out that Bailey was half right about the netball. What he was referring to is actually a Pilates ball, Talbot says, which has been used occasionally during the series. “The point is that we’re using a barrier so the actors don’t have any physical contact in that area between each other.”
But the tool used most often during the sex scenes in “Bridgerton” isn’t a ball at all. “Really the star of the show is a flight memory-foam cushion,” Talbot says. The intimacy coordinator came up with the idea while flying from New York to London. As she was using the pillow purchased at the airport, she got the idea that, “it would be really good for simulated sex scenes,” Talbot says. “It condenses really small but it provides a really solid cushioning between two people.”
Comfortability conversations occurred before each sex scene.
“I never want to work on assumptions of what an actor is comfortable with,” Talbot says. “And that not only goes per season, but also per scene. Just because you’ve agreed to something in one scene doesn’t mean that’s what you’re agreeing to for the whole season.” So there are individual conversations that happen per scene regarding an actor’s nudity and simulated sex agreement, she explains.
Even the smallest gestures are carefully choreographed.
When working in the “Bridgerton” world, you’re working with period clothing, and it can be a challenge to choreograph its removal, Talbot says. “It’s not the same working with modern where you can just pull off a T-shirt,” she explains. “We’ll ensure the gloves are coming off [and] the stockings are coming off in the right way.” But even more than that, Talbot is also looking at the minutia, ensuring that the characters are both moving and breathing together.
Humor is key when filming.
“You will never get through a sex scene with Bailey with a straight face,” Talbot says. And that silliness and attitude makes for a more comfortable environment. “The energy that Johnny and Simone bring into this, it’s never fraught, it’s always so fun.” Talbot also appreciates their ability to laugh and poke fun at one another. She and Bailey have a recurring joke about his proclivity to rip his pants. “He actually had a crotch-splitting episode season one, and the hilarious thing is he’s had the same thing happen in season two,” Talbot says. Apparently the crotch split happened while filming the game of pall-mall this season. And Talbot says she’s teased Bailey “relentlessly” about it. “It’s kind of brilliant that he has a one-for-one ratio for it,” she adds.
– Additional reporting by Taylor Andrews
Alexis Jones is the senior health and fitness editor at PS. Her passions and areas of expertise include women’s health and fitness, mental health, racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare, and chronic conditions. Prior to joining PS, she was the senior editor at Health magazine. Her other bylines can be found at Women’s Health, Prevention, Marie Claire, and more.
Taylor Andrews is a Balance editor at POPSUGAR who specializes in topics relating to sex, relationships, dating, sexual health, mental health, and more. In her six years working in editorial, she’s written about how semen is digested, why sex aftercare is the move, and how the overturn of Roe killed situationships.
