Let’s be honest; people getting drunk and having sex is far from a rare occurrence in society, but usually we don’t expect that sex to be entirely pretend.
When it comes to intimate scenes on film and TV sets, you’d probably imagine the people involved to be more coherent because, well, they’re at work.
But perhaps it’s not that surprising that such scenes are so nerve-wracking that they sometimes require a bit of liquid courage, and Jennifer Lawrence has been candid about finding herself in that exact situation.
After being thrust into the spotlight thanks to her roles in the Hunger Games and X-Men franchises, in 2016 Lawrence starred alongside Chris Pratt in the sci-fi movie Passengers.
The film follows Pratt’s character as he is woken up 90 years early on a spaceship travelling to a distant colony planet, after which he finds company in Lawrence’s character.
Lawrence recalled her experience on the set during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which she said the film was the setting of her ‘first real sex scene’.
She quickly clarified that this didn’t mean ‘real sex’, but it was the first scene of its kind for her and she described it as ‘really bizarre’ and ‘really weird’.
When asked how she prepared for the intimate scene, Lawrence responded: “You drink.”
Jennifer Lawrence had her first ‘real’ sex scene in Passengers. Credit: Columbia Pictures
She went to explain that she got ‘really, really drunk’ before filming the scene, though that only caused more problems down the line as she struggled to remember exactly how it played out.
“That led to more anxiety when I got home because I was like, ‘What have I done? I don’t know’,” Lawrence said.
The actor went on to note that Pratt was married at the time they were shooting the film. The Guardians of the Galaxy star married Anna Faris in 2009, but they split two years after the release of Passengers, in 2018.
“And it was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach,” Lawrence continued.
“And I knew it was my job, but I couldn’t tell my stomach that. So I called my mom, and I was like, ‘Will you just tell me it’s OK?’
“It was just very vulnerable. And you don’t know what’s too much. You want to do it real, you want everything to be real, but then … That was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been.”
