One doesn’t have to do a lot of searching to find quotes from actors discussing how uncomfortable it is to film sex scenes. There are efforts made nowadays to improve things, with productions hiring intimacy coordinators to participate in the process, but it’s hard to escape the awkwardness that comes with showing skin and romping with a scene partner while cameras roll.
Margaret Qualley is familiar with that kind of on-set awkwardness, but she recently explained why her time making the new comedy Drive-Away Dolls was different. She has multiple sex scenes in the film (in fact, her character is introduced in flagrante delicto), but the material presented different expectations than she was used to, and the result was apparently fun.
As captured in the video above, I recently had the chance to interview Margaret Qualley and her co-stars Geraldine Viswanathan and Beanie Feldstein via Zoom during the recent Drive-Away Dolls press day, and I asked the trio about the approach that was taken to the sex scenes on set. Qualley responded,
I don’t know, I feel like these were the most fun sex scenes I've ever shot because I guess a lot of times, sex scenes, the service is to be romantic, be hot, or something, you know? And these sex scenes are just like simply… well, Geraldine's is pretty hot, but my stuff is like silly and funny and It was it was just all about making a fool of yourself. And I think that's maybe something that women don't get to do as much in sex scenes typically, so I really enjoyed that.
Written and directed by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls is a road trip comedy that harkens back to the exploitation movies of filmmakers like Russ Meyer – demonstrating a sex positive philosophy while also operating with modern sensibilities. Margaret Qualley’s character, Jamie, is a free spirit, a proud lesbian, and very much into casual sex with relative strangers that he meets as she travels with her best friend (Geraldine Viswanathan’s Miriam) from Philadelphia to Tallahassee. Jamie gets quite enthusiastic in bed, and apparently it’s a reflection of Qualley just having fun and not worrying about being either “romantic” or “hot.”
As I note in my CinemaBlend review of Drive-Away Dolls, the movie is a silly cinematic ride, and a big reason why it’s so entertaining is Margaret Qualley’s charismatic performance (and Geraldine Viswanathan is phenomenal as well). After being delayed as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike last year, the film is arriving in theaters this Friday, February 23 – and be sure to stay tuned here on the site for more from my interview with the three stars. To learn about what's ahead on the theatrical and streaming schedule, check out our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.
