Streaming
The director and intimacy coordinator ofNormal PeopleandConversations with Friendsgo inside the Hulu series sizzling scenes.
But its the staging and direction ofthe sex scenesthemselves that best captures Rooneys signature sad, horny ethos.
For all of Rooneys characters precociousness, theyre dense when it comes to their own emotions.
All are unable to express how they feel about one another outside of achingly intimate physical acts.
I think it’s [about their] longing, discovery, and also agency.
Particularly for her female characters.
How do they do it?
Below, OBrien and director Lenny Abrahamson discuss exactly what goes in to these sad and extremely horny scenes.
Both series share a similar visual language, especially when it comes to their sex scenes.
Fans of the show will recall frequent shots of particular body parts (remember thethirst for Connells chain?)
as well as tons of close-ups.
We describe it as being inside the frame, says director and executive producer Lenny Abrahamson.
The way they achieve this is by keeping the camera as tight on the actors as possible.
We stand very, very close to people.
[Focusing on their] head, shoulders, faces, hands and things like that, he says.
Yet Abrahamson is also conscious of when they need to back it up.
So that [balance is] one of the challenges.
OBrien, too, praises the power of the tight shots.
We’re being shared a private and inside view of who these two people are together.
That feels so special, she says.
It’s like [watching the] opening of a petal.
Dont neglect the build-up
Rooney knows that sex is about more than the physical act itself.
In her characters interactions, everything teems with sexual tension.
A stolen glance can be a form of foreplay; a cold rush.
The creators double-check to play up those sensory-driven elements on the screen, too.
There’s certain motifs [we employ] like having something cold on the skin.
Then we had that same motif when Frances and Nick first kissed.
He’s drinking a bottle of beer [and presses it to her chest].
These small, evocative moments are just as hot as the sex acts that follow them.
We find the bare bones of it, the shape of it, the quality, says OBrien.
We had lightning storms and our schedule was absolutely brutal.
[We landed on] the way he holds her and having them both facing us.
We are creating body changes that will lead to images.
Showing them together in that way felt like it was breaking out of the idea of that as somehowprovocative.
WhileConversationsdoes feature nudity, none of the characters go full frontal.
Before the intimacy guidelines, perhaps more women [were] being asked to be naked, she says.
I think that’s good, right, and proper.
