Outlander star Jessica Reynolds has described filming sex scenes as the “complete opposite” of what she expected.
The 24-year-old actress is best known for playing Malva Christie in the sixth season of Outlander – the time-travelling drama series famous for its sex scenes – and praised the show for its inclusion of an intimacy co-ordinator on set.
Reynolds made the comments during a Royal Television Society panel talk, appearing alongside Outlander’s intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey.
“I’m fairly new to the business. So the only proper simulated sex scenes I’ve done have been on Outlander,” Reynolds explained.
“Even from my experience, I think in my head before [filming] when I’m reading the scripts, when I see a sex scene, my head goes, ‘Fine, easy, great.’ Like, ‘That’s an interesting scene. Oh, my character’s doing this. This is fun.’ And I didn’t have any qualms about it whatsoever.
“And then you get on set, and it is the most exposing thing ever, even if it’s just kissing, because maybe you’ve never met this person that you’re kissing before in your life.”
Reynolds described how – before arriving on the Outlander set and speaking to Coffey – she hadn’t realised she would be allowed to change her mind about certain sex scenes, adding there was a “yucky-ness” aspect to filming sex scenes that she “didn’t even think there was going to be”.
“I think the most important thing – and this is something Vanessa told me – is that now you can change your mind, if you’re not comfortable [with a sex scene]. In the past, you were literally not allowed to say, ‘I’m actually not comfortable with this anymore’. You know, you have the option.”
She continued: “I think that is such a huge thing, and something I faced because I was so sure that it wouldn’t really bother me, and that I was open, I was confident. And it was the complete opposite, and Vanessa completely just opened my perspective on that and really took all the taboo and all the yucky-ness out of it that I didn’t even think there was going to be.”
Earlier in the conversation, which centred around the rise of intimacy co-ordinators in the industry, Reynolds stressed that if she hadn’t met Coffey, she “wouldn’t have felt safe” during sex scenes going forward in her career.
“You’re fighting for income, in this job as an actress. But if it’s your dream, it’s been your dream since you were a child, it’s very easy to fall into a trap of being a ‘yes man’. And I think if Vanessa wasn’t introduced into my working life, I would have gone on working in, you know – I just, I wouldn’t have felt safe,” she said.
