Gemma Arterton has revealed her battle with Hollywood director who tried to force her to do an unscripted sex scene
10 September 2024, 14:22 | Updated: 10 September 2024, 15:00
Gemma Arterton has spoken about the pressure she received from a director to do a sex scene early in her career, admitting that she “flat out” refused to do it.
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The ex-Bond girl, 38, said she was worried that anyone younger would have felt pressured to just say yes in a similar scenario.
Arteton made her feature film debut in the 2007 comedy St Trinian's, and explained that she only felt brave enough to stand up for herself as she was older.
Speaking to the Radio Times, she said: “I remember being on a set once and the director said: ‘You’re going to shag on the bed’.
“And I said: ‘No, this scene was written for us to be off screen, so you just hear the noises. I’d never have accepted the role if it was going to be filmed.’”
Despite pressure from the director, which she says mortified the other actors on set, she said she held firm and refused to shoot the scene.
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“I don’t care if you think I’m difficult,” she recalled saying.
She added: “I only felt like I could say that because I was older. [If I had been younger] it would have been really hard. You might get the sack or get a terrible reputation.”
The actor said the incident happened before intimacy coordinators were the norm.
“They are the go-between now – it’s a totally different landscape. Anything you’re not comfortable with is not going to happen.
“I’ve heard other actors that are like, ‘I loved it when there was no intimacy co-ordinator’, but I definitely think it’s better [now].”
Arterton broke into the spotlight at Strawberry Fields in the bond film Quantum of Solace in 2008.
She went on to star in Rogue Agent, The King's Man and Clash of the Titans, and made her stage debut in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe Theatre.
