Kirsten Stewart and Katy O'Brien have opened up about the sex scenes in new thriller Love Lies Bleeding, and how they hopes it will give a new perspective on how intimacy is portrayed in movies.
The film follows Kirsten, 33, playing a reclusive gym manager named Lou, who falls in love with a bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O'Brian), and the pair eventually fall into a life of crime thanks to her family's dodgy connections.
In a new interview with Variety, Kirsten opened up about the pair's intense sexual relationship, including one certain scene in her bathroom. "They don’t take their clothes off, but this is going to shock people," Kirsten teased, adding that they both wanted the intimate moments to feel real.
"All you ever [usually] see is a dress coming up and a head going down under. I think even hetero sex on film is so rote. You go, ‘OK, I know what that looks like in movies, that’s what we’ll do,’ because no one actually wants to reveal themselves."
Kirsten then explained how playing someone like Lou helped her to connect to her own sexuality, touching on the character's 'butchness'. "There was something about having the things that I have found attractive be really glorified. It was really sexy. And I don't mean from an outsider's perspective: I felt turned on by it, and it was cool to have people witness that."
Katy O'Brian, meanwhile, shared a more candid side to filming intimate scenes with PEOPLE, touching on how it's a totally different vibe on set to how it looks on screen. "It's just so not glamorous, and it's really not that sexy when you're doing it. I mean, first of all, you've got a boom-mic guy that's got his microphone hovering over you while it's all happening.
"Basically it's literally agreed in writing before anyone even gets on set exactly what isn't going to be shown: from what angle, how much, how little. By the time you get there, it is all quite mechanical," she continued. "We stick with the script for those scenes, because with intimate scenes there's massive approvals that go into everything. If anything changes, we have to go back and sign more paperwork. We just had to approve it all ahead of time."
Love Lies Bleeding is in UK cinemas on 19th April
