April 8, 2021 • 38 mins
In this episode we learn how the revolutionary role of intimacy coordinators enhance the way directors and actors tap into the most delicate parts of performance. Guest-host Jess Brownell and executive producer Shonda Rhimes break down some of Shondaland's perspectives on storytelling through sex and Bridgerton intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot reveals how she puts it to practice. Plus, directors Tom Verica and Julie Anne Robinson share which love scenes were the most challenging to choreograph.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I mean, my favorite scene in the show is probably
Violet talking to Daphne about sex. It's so awkward. I
love how awkward it is. There are some things you
ought to know. If it is this difficult to discuss,
how difficult must it be to before it is? Not? Darest,
It is most natural, much in the way the rain
soaks a field in autumn and in spring flowers grow. Yeah,
(00:21):
is this what your sex talk was like? Is this
all the birds and the bees talk one for you?
Welcome to Bridgeton the official podcast where we're going behind
the scenes of Bridgerton. I'm Gabrielle Collins. Hello, Jess Brownell.
Here on this episode we're going to be talking about sex.
(00:43):
I imagine for a lot of people it's a shock
when oh, it's still going. Oh, and it's still going
five minutes later, or, in the case of episode six,
twenty minutes later. Right, you've posted the sorry not sorry,
I can't look away from this sex montage memes, You've
seen the what is a penis spoofs, spicy TikTok musicals,
(01:05):
and some of us have even indulged in soaking the
field in autumn a little early. Gab I don't know
if I'm ever going to be able to go through
a thunderstorm without thinking about sex. Now is that we
are in In this episode, we're going to look at
how Bridgetin got all of our minds and the fanciest
of gutters. So you know, I had that experience when
(01:28):
I first read the books. I actually listened to them
on audiotape. And you know, with romance novels, the first
two thirds of the book are pretty PG, especially with
a regency romance novel. It's flirty and there's some double entendre,
but it's pretty. It's pretty PG. And then all of
(01:49):
a sudden you're in very descriptive, well written when it's
Julia Quinn sex scenes, and it is it's a little blushy,
it is. I kept laughing during some of the sex
scenes because clearly I'm five years old, but I also
was intrigued by all that went into making it happen,
because it doesn't just happen on its own. These scenes
(02:11):
are rehearsed, practiced over and over and over again. So
we're going to be talking with intimacy coordinator Elizabeth Talbot,
and we'll also talk to directors Tom Barica and Julianne
Robinson about some of the sexiest scenes that they directed.
You'll find some surprises within that, And of course, Jess,
we're going to be breaking down the story full backdrops
(02:33):
behind the sex and intimacy in Bridgerton and all of
those many layers and ways that you can slice and
dice that we should probably unpack sex and intimacy in Bridgerton,
starting with Daphanie's education. After all, Jess did bring up
the Violet gives the sex talk scene. Jess, why is
the sex talk scene your favorite scene? That's where it
(02:56):
feels it really reads you into the period. You're like,
oh wow, they really didn't know anything about sex, and
it gave me a lot of sympathy for Daphnee to
feel like, these girls have the whole weight of the
world placed on them on their marriage choice, their marriage match,
and they don't even know about the best part of it.
So what it sounds like is all of the regency
(03:18):
restrictions the writers learned about came crashing against the final
moment of what we know as Daphne's youth. That moment
is loaded with storytelling, and it is of course why
executive producer Shonda Rhymes also loved this scene for its
performances and its backstory. I don't know, I spent a
lot of time thinking about all this stuff. I'm like, so,
you know, Phoebe's yelling at her mother for not telling
(03:40):
her more, and I'm like, nobody probably ever told violent
anything like Lady Bridgerton probably an avenue, you know, much
of anything at all. She didn't have any words to
express what she was trying to tell her daughter. Having
that talk like that was probably like the boldest thing
she'd ever done in her life, you know, in terms
of that the way more than her mother ever did
for her. And I thought that was fascinating. You know,
(04:01):
when Violet tells off her son, when she puts those
children in their place, she is interesting because you realize,
like she's also not only been through a lot, but
I mean, who has eight children and gets through it
all loses her husband and their children are resentful of her.
Like that moment when Phoebe is upset with her mother
for not telling her, you know, what she needed to
(04:21):
know for her wedding night. It was very interesting. What's
so interesting about it is that it has nothing to
do with the romance. We associate with bodies blending into one.
Shanda is hinting at something that is dynamically Shonda land
the build up. There were eight writers on season one.
(04:43):
We were in a windowless room in Hollywood. We spent
the first day, you know, with Chris talking us through
his vision for the show, what he wanted for the tone,
how he saw the episodes playing out. And I think
there was this clear distinction from the beginning that we
weren't doing a traditional period piece, that we wanted it
(05:04):
to be sexy. We wanted it to be juicy. So
did you start by combing through the books line by
line to extract some of this tone. When we were
writing the show, we realized that if we adapted the
books directly and you know, it was all sweet and
innocent for six episodes, and then suddenly in episode six
(05:25):
or seven they got married and there was all of
that sex, it was gonna be a little shocking. And
so we wanted to carry the tone, the sort of
sexy tone, throughout the beginning episodes of the show. So
it was about finding moments for Anthony and Sienna to
be sneaking off, for Benedict to be observing things in
the Demi mom, and that to me is the element
(05:46):
of the build up and the heightened stakes around love
that Shonda Land bakes into story. And Jess, you've been
a writer and story editor with Shonda Land for years,
so you know, yeah, I think that's true. I think that,
you know, Shonda and Shondaland in general, part of the
language of these shows is that longing that will they
(06:06):
or won't they? You know, it was a Meredith Derek thing.
I think it's a Fits and Live thing. I think
it's definitely a Simon a Daphne thing. And even though
Fits and Live and Meredith and Derek are modern characters,
if you look at those shows, there are moments where
there's a lot of drawn out longing, and the regency
(06:27):
setting made it all the easier to really foreground that
element in the TV landscape. Shondaland has made its mark
by shifting the way we see women in relationships and
women in power. To me, it feels very important that
when we are telling story that the women feel empowered,
(06:49):
that the story makes the women feel empowered, that the
storyline for the character is empowered, and that the story
that's being told has something to do with what we're seeing, like,
we're seeing this for a reason. We're not seeing this
just because it sounded fund to the director or it
sounded fund to the writer, like, Oh, we're telling a
story because we're growing a character and we're taking them someplace,
(07:14):
and there's a point. Shanda Rhimes is known for creating
characters that elbowed their way into the space, bringing a
roundness and a realness and a sexual healthiness to female
characters on television. I sometimes I'm like, this feels it
just doesn't have anything to do with the story. I
don't know why this woman is naked, why they're making
out this way. It doesn't have anything to do with
(07:35):
the story that's being told. That feels cratuitous and there's
no point to it. I remember one day I was
writing one of the sex scenes for the show. I was,
you know, sitting in my office one evening in the
dark room, and I was a lot of our language
that we use on the show is very colorful, like
in the action lines. Some writers write very spare action lines,
(07:56):
but our voice on the show was to you know,
really describe I've in detail, like what people are feeling
and what they're doing, and so I'm sitting there and
I realized I have written like a three page blow
by blow no pun intended of exactly what this sex
scene is. And then I thought about Chris fandus and
reading this, and I thought, if he's expecting me to
(08:18):
say and then they have sex and that's it. If
he receives a three page document where I am describing
like every moment they're breath, hovering, blah blah blah blah blah,
I'm gonna be so embarrassed. And so I went in
and had a chat with him in which I felt
very much like Daphne talking to Violet about sex and
asked him, was I supposed to be going really in
(08:38):
depth for this scene? Like how much detail do you want?
And he was like, oh, I want detail. So I
went for it. And there are levels of going forward, right,
there's diving into your characters most private thoughts, and then
there's the tease of courtship and barely their touch is right. Yeah,
non sex, but just as passionate scenes like the dream
(09:00):
sequence in the beginning of episode three. It's so sensual.
And so the dream sequence in the episode three came
about because we were wanting to bring some thirst and
sexiness into earlier episodes. You know, it was a good
way to get inside Daphne's head, and it was important
for us to keep the desire alive for the character
(09:27):
and for the audience. You know, we don't want you
to have to wait necessarily till episode six or seven
to see these two characters touching and holding each other
because of regency rules. You know, we had to find
creative ways to get around that. The rules were sexy.
The rules are sexy. Get anticipation that thirst. Yeah, I
(09:47):
thought that was great. Yeah, absolutely, We really strived in
every episode to find moments for Daphne and Simon to
really be thirsting for each other. Thirst was a word
that got you in the room a lot. You know,
we wanted to keep in mind that this is a
romance and it is a sexy story, and finding the
moments where their hands graze each other, or where their
(10:09):
breath stops, or where she's having you know, sexy dreams
about him. It was very important to Chris and to
all of us as writers to keep that alive throughout
the series. I find that incredibly seductive without being overtly obvious.
Tom Erica, he directed in my opinion, the thirstiest of
the episodes, and that's episode three. The way Tom puts
(10:31):
it stretching out that timeline of courtship was erotic. One
of my favorite scenes that I directed was an episode three.
I think it was a three page scene and there
was a whole lot. There was this whole silent part
that Chris had written out very specifically about what happens
in that moment where their hands just about touch. So
there was a very specific shot of just focusing on
(10:53):
their hands. It's this moment where like they're both thinking
the same thing, did that really just happen? And are
you feeling what I feeling? And they want to hold
that look just one bit longer before they know they
have to go in the other room, and I feel
like so much is said in that look. It's a
testament to how much actors bring to the story, you know,
I mean the way that they did it. I was
(11:15):
just like, that is everything. I remember. I had them
facing in different directions because they clearly wanted to be
near each other, But how do we get to that point?
I was wondering why you did that? Yeah, that wasn't
in the script, and I really wanted to sort of
earn when they do finally look at one another, the
moment where they kind of look and take each other
in where he's impressed by her insight into something, and
(11:40):
then she gets lost in the painting, but she's facing
in one direction looking another painting, yet they're right next
to each other. The others all sent an me very
grand and impressive, but this one, this one is intimate.
I found that so sexy. That there was the inevitable
and there was that a goal attraction, but we're playing
(12:01):
against that until really earn it. The DNA of that scene,
I wanted helpable chemistry and connection that they have as
they kind of feel the heat from each other. But
there was so much with the words and the chemistry
(12:23):
that Reggae and Phoebe brought to that which I thought
was just outstanding. And that chemistry is I think, really
gives the audience a lot of build up to what
is eventually where they do come together. It was very
fun playing in that scene. I really enjoyed that scene
a lot. As Tom breaks down the anatomy of this
defining moment in Daphne and Simon's friendship, I'm immediately reminded
of a conversation I had with Kelly Valentine Hendry, the
(12:46):
casting director. So that was a very important scene for
me in the casting, and it's a real moment with
Daphne and Simon where you see the connection. The two
of them find themselves in a room by themselves, and
Simon realizes, I think at that moment when he properly
falls in love with her. I mean, obviously he falls
in love with her at love at first sight when
they bump into each other on the dance floor, but
(13:07):
that was the moment and the two of their hands
nearly touch. Where we were casting that scene, that was
a real moment where we could tell if people had
chemistry or not. The chemistry that Kelly is talking about
ripples throughout all relationships in Bridgerton and is multiplied by
(13:29):
the actors and actresses and creatives on the show. H
The production did such an incredible job interpreting the scripts
and they brought an incredible amount to the story that
we could not have even imagined. So there were months
in between us finishing writing our scripts and then months
later me seeing it cut and going, oh my gosh,
(13:50):
it's real. It was just an incredible effort I think
this all star cast and crew. One of the dynamic
members of the production is Lizzie tell It. She was
Bridgerton's intimacy coordinator and kind of the director of the
ballet of sensual expression on camera. So my first encounter
(14:11):
with Bridgerton was an email I received asking to you interview.
So I made the mistake of asking my mother to
read the first Bridgeton book because I was away at
the time and I'd forgotten my kindle, And I said, oh,
I rang my mama said, old monkey, you could just
quickly read this book. Just let me know what you think.
I got a phone call a bit later saying, well,
it's certainly going to be your type of job. When
(14:34):
we come back from the break, we'll learn more about
Lizzie Talbot and her role as intimacy coordinator on Bridgerton.
Welcome back. Lizzie schooled me on intimacy coaching and best
(14:57):
practices for an equitable and enjoyable experience on said, and
I could give you a beautiful soliloquy introducing Lizzie and
the importance of her role as an intimacy coach on Bridgerton,
but I'll let Executive producer Shanda Rhimes tell you, I mean,
I actually put out a memo to our actors that said,
truly said, if you want to wear a snowsuit while
(15:18):
you're doing your love scenes, then you will wear a snowsuit.
That is fine, and it's up to the director to
figure out how that's going to work. You know, prior
to days before intimacy coordinators, but this particular show is
a show that is basically about sex, which makes the
idea that you're going to wear a snowsuit impossible. So
to me, having an intimacy coordinator, which we have on
(15:40):
all our shows, but having one on this show was vital,
and having the right one was vital, and I feel
like it was just without her. I can't even imagine
for the actors, for the director, for everybody, like what
she does is such an important part of getting those
scenes right and making those scenes asing as they were
(16:00):
for the audience. That would not have happened without her
and her abilities. Here's Lucy Talbot. One of the things
that was so different about Bridgeton is that the producers,
the executive producers, the directors were incredibly supportive of the
role and the process. They were being incredibly brave by
taking on this new role as well, because they didn't
know what to expect. And something that I will always
(16:23):
take away from my time there was just how patient
and how respectful Chris and the team were about the role.
It was a very empowering experience because I was invited
into all of the conversations. I was able to lead
the choreography. I was able to work in collaboration with
the director about what they wanted, to see what their
(16:45):
vision was, and to help them realize that vision. And
it felt incredibly involved, which was really exciting, and you know,
at the time it really revolutionary, you know, to be
working with the directors, and I know that directors come
into working with intimacy coordinative you know, quite a bit
of apprehension. I mean, directors have done intimacy scenes for
a very long time, long before we came along. And
(17:08):
the sense of being welcomed to the forefront by the
directors was really wonderful. What an interesting job, very very
and she kind of schooled me on how important her
role is and how they jumped right into the deep end.
On the very first day of filming The Infamous Libraries,
I heard that, Yeah, that's wild. I don't understand why
(17:30):
more people aren't excited about and embracing the use of
an intimacy coordinator for the dignity of the actors, but
also for the magic of the scenes and for the
comfort of everybody there. You're not giving up control. You
are promoting a sense of everybody working together to get
something done that needs to be done in a way
(17:50):
that's really important and right. In general, one of the
things that we do is intimacy coordinators is look at
all types of intimacy. I think the perspective from a
lot of people is that intimacy coordinators are just there
for simulated sex and nunity, which is true we are,
(18:11):
but we also do so much work with intimacy of
a non sexualized nature. So for example, you know, best friends, parent, child, brother, sister.
You know, we do a lot of work with that
as well. And one of the things like that that's
really important to think about is that those are still
very intimate relationships that have to be formed quickly. Because
(18:32):
these actors may have only met, you know, recently, they
might not know each other very well, and yet they
have to portray a very deep, very personal, very intimate
relationship with one another that is not just under the
blanket of sex as it were. Director Tom Verica wholeheartedly agrees.
And it's complicated, you know, not only the you know
the time, the period of which there's expectancy of how
(18:55):
one's behavior is. You have that obstacle. You have the
very clear obstacle that Chris sets forth very beautifully in
the first episode, where it's kind of an arranged deal
just for their own each of their own individual ones.
But they're what we're witnessing, and what we're seeing is
falling in love, and that's to have to overcome those
obstacles and how you get to that point. I just
(19:16):
think it's far more interesting and I think it's far
more what we go through in life. You know. I
think of my first meeting with my wife, and we
just fought like cats and dogs, but it was very
clear that we were you know, we were attracted. We
were set up on a blind date and we kind
of went at each other and our friends were like, well,
this is a mistake, this is never going to work.
And you know, here we are twenty years later, we're married,
(19:36):
and but I think there's that chemistry that just happens
and it manifests itself in so many different ways. So
the exploration of relationship dynamic is laid out just absolutely
beautifully in this series. There was a lot going on
in Bridgeton there, you know, so many different scenes to painting,
so many different types of intimacies and so many different positionings,
and they were also challenging in their own way. They
(20:00):
all had to have research behind them, they all had
to have rehearsals, they all had to have you know,
different sets of choreography. I mean, I think for a
couple of scenes we had, you know, we would present
two or three, sometimes even four options for the directors
to see. And again, as so much of it, which
was really great is is actor led. You know, no
one knows the characters better than the actors, and if
(20:22):
they have an impulse to do something, it's really important
to investigate it and to give it the time and
space that it needs to see if it develops, and
so often it did because you know, they are living
and breathing these characters every day. All the actors on
the show so studious. You know, they really are giving
everything that they have to immersing themselves in these characters
(20:43):
in this world, and they often came up with such,
you know, really beautiful ideas that really important to explore
and to go with. Lizzie, can you describe what being
an advocate for actress is like in your role as
an intimacy coach. You know, you're an actor, but you
still own your own body. You know, you can still
decide what you do to it. You're at work, we
(21:04):
are creating scenes of intimacy, but we are also making
sure that the actors are safe and that you know,
at no point are they like violating their own bodies
to create entertainment, Like, that's not what we want to
do here. It must have been interesting for them, you know.
I've worked on shows where when we get to sexy scenes,
(21:24):
we kind of just say and then the actors do
whatever they're comfortable with. But with this show, we did
have to choreograph exactly what was happening a little bit
more when we were writing it, because there's so much
storytelling in the sex scenes, and so I'm sure the
intimacy coordinator had a big job to make sure the
(21:44):
actors were comfortable, which obviously is still important, but also
to hit all those beats. One of the great things
about Bridgeton was the amount of rehearsal time that they
gave us, and that is not common on every show,
and so it was really helpful because at no point
then where we ever on set going, oh what do
we do? Because we always knew what we're going to do,
because we've had so many hours of rehearsals working it
(22:07):
all out. We'd try different positions, We've tried different sets
of choreography, we tried different techniques to make sure that
we were getting exactly what we wanted. We were working
in collaboration with the directors beforehand so that when we
arrived on set, that director knew exactly what we were doing.
What were some of the more challenging moments or scenes
to choreograph. One of the scenes that I had with
(22:28):
Tom because it was the scene of Daphne's first experience
with masturbation. That's a difficult scene to shoot because you know,
Phoebe took on a huge amount there, because it's quite
difficult to do solo sex scenes. You've got no one
to sort of bounce ideas off, you've got no one
to connect with, you've got no one to sort of,
(22:49):
you know, play around with, and so see, oh does
this work, and so you know, we had some you know,
discussions about what it would look like, and we know
what were the sort of rhythmic be this section, and
you know, what were we really trying to show throughout
all of this and what was going to be the
tone of it. And again, it's that it's going back
(23:09):
to that concept of delicacy and dexterity. It was particularly
delicate in the sequence that I had where Daphne is
in bed thinking at night and it sends into the
flashback and pulling back from those images where she's exploring.
And I knew Phoebe the actor, was slightly uncomfortable about
certain aspects of it. Having been an actor, I know
(23:31):
what actors go through. It's incredibly private for Daphne, but
it's also exploratory, and it's also something that you know,
it's a concept of discovery because this is something that
she's never done before. She never even knew that she
should or that she should even consider it, or that
it even existed. It's just so sort of fascinating to
(23:55):
work with that. And you know, Tom was so wonderful
about it and incredibly helpful and supportive because it's a
tough scene to do. I really want to create that
environment of trust and protection in safety because it is
a safety net. We had a wonderful intimacy coordinator, so
(24:16):
I really make it a collaboration because ultimately the actor
is the one who's the most exposed. They're the ones
who were most vulnerable. They're the ones who were performing it.
If they're not feeling comfortable, that's going to come across.
So I kind of very early on started talking to
her about it and bet laying ground rules of what
her comfort level is. You know. I sometimes play music
during a few takes so an actor can kind of
loosen up and get into it, and had them pick Oh,
(24:38):
Jeff ja I was brilliant at that. We often had
like a Jeff Jazz sort of intimate soundtrack. I think
he blasted out slow Hands, you know, the scene with
Daphne and Simon by the late when they're not wearing
very much, and it was Yeah, it was really really
good fun. You know, we had all all the writers
(25:00):
in the room, had read all the books coming into
the room, like all eight of the Bridges and books,
and so what's really fun about her books, I think
is there is this you know, long emotional build up
and build up and build up, until finally, three quarters
of the way through the book, the characters finally sleep
together and you get a little bit of action. I
think this is why they call, you know, these romance
(25:22):
novels poor and for women, because you get that long
build up intension. I don't know why I had resubscribed
to this idea that the Regency era was sexless. I
didn't really know how detail the sex gets in these books.
And you know, when you read these books, there's not
much sex for three quarters of the book. And so
suddenly they get married and you're reading like his you know,
(25:48):
the language they use is really it's like something about
like her maidenhead and his warrior, and you're like, oh,
there there's genitalia in this book. We're really getting a
play by play. So that was the saying, and it
was something that we all had to get comfortable with
working on the show Goodness, No No No. I talk
about sex all the time at work that it's too funny.
(26:10):
I mean, there's that scene where they are having sex
on like a picnic blanket outside and I'm like, this looks,
it looks it's so real. But you know that's One
of the things with regency characters is there is this
desire because they're treated in such a perm and proper way, uh,
(26:30):
you know, to think of them as other. But they're human,
they're horny, they they're having sex. You know, their their
eyes are lining up when they see a naked man
like That was one of the realizations that I think
allowed us all to access these characters and write them
just as if we were writing a modern take character.
(26:52):
We'll be right back, Welcome back to bridget In the
EFFICI podcast, we've talked about different levels of intimacy in Bridgerton,
advocacy for actors when that intimacy becomes more sexually centered,
and now we're getting into more of the story behind
Daphne's sexual awakening. So let's just scratch the surface of
(27:16):
the female gaze here. Sean Dea rhymes. You know, on
network television, if you could shoot somebody in the face,
you can show it on network television, But you could
not show a man put his hand on a woman's
upper flank hip, which I found crazy. So I used
to say, like I want my daughters to grow up
to have wonderful, healthy sex lives. I do not with
him to grow up to shoot somebody in the face.
So I don't understand why we show these things in
(27:37):
the opposite ways, as if one's okay and one's not.
Let's circle back around to Lizzie Talbot. So Chris Van
Duson was adamant that this was going to be from
the female gaze. It was something that he was very
clear about from the beginning and something that I just
really loved and wanted to run with. Julianne Robinson was
also one of the first directors I worked with on
the show, and she was very on board with this
idea as well, and it took us all the way
(27:58):
through the series single episode. We were constantly thinking about, Okay,
so this has to be from the female gaze. This
isn't sort of a boy's story. When are sexual creatures
the same way men are, and you know, most of
the time when you're watching a show, it feels like
women are being shown through male gaze very gratuitously. So
we're talking about the female gaze. But I had to
ask Tom about another very specific kind of gaze, Daphne's
(28:24):
longing look at that spoon, which I think has its
own Twitter account. It's an awakening. Yeah, it's innocence and
being drawn into this attraction. Not sure what that is.
And Chris and I were sitting there and we were
talking about those shots because it was it was in
the script, but again articulating visually kind of what he wanted.
(28:44):
And he was sitting there and I said, you know
what if Phoebe playing Daphne is watching him, and I
wanted her to kind of be entranced by just being
drawn into him in that moment and slowing that down,
so we shot it at a slower speed to kind
of again put you in her mind. It's not over hurt,
but you definitely are clocked into experiencing what she's experiencing
(29:04):
in that moment. And I remember, as I did slow mo,
I checked with Chris to make sure and he was like,
I love that. I said, is it too much as
a pushing? And then I went even closer because again
it's such an intimate moment in a public place, a
very specific point of view that each character is having
in this point Daphne's point of view that we shot
(29:25):
even closer, so it was almost like that she was
kissing him or being that intimate there and the distance
that they were sitting. For the rest of the scene
played as is, and it's all very traditional how we
cover it, but that moment we wanted to pop in
because there was, like you say, a bit more of
a hype moment. It's really kind of are we honoring
kind of the point of view of what the character
(29:46):
is feeling in that moment, and that was a that
was one that I thought we succeeded in sort of
articulating that moment for Daphne and what she was experiencing.
This is something that we haven't seen before and it's
really sort of color nominated. In the wedding night when
you have Daphne lying on the bed and Daphne is
actually covered at that point, you're not seeing any nudity
(30:07):
from her, but what you are looking at is Daphne's
view of a naked man for the first time, which
is very unusual. You don't often see it from that perspective. Normally,
it's the female lying on the bed and the viewer
is like looking at the image of them nude, whereas
it's completely different from this perspective and you see her
face that's what you're looking at. Really, it's a huge
(30:30):
shift Simon and dresses and Daphne's eyes slide up and like, oh,
I've never seen one of those before. Daphne would have
nothing to compare and naked man's body too, So her
reaction to Simon's naked body is very pure. It is
just like, this is really the first time she's ever
seen anything. It's so different. It's so different, you don't
(30:54):
see it from that perspective very often at all. Because
and really like that, I mean, obviously we've got you know,
reggae sat in the paeground, but in the background we
were really looking at is the face of Daphne. It's
that realization that for the first time she is seeing
a very real, very human naked man in front of her,
which she would only before have seen and you know,
(31:14):
like paintings at best. Let's get into more of this
with director Julianne Robinson. Julianne Robinson directed the Honeymoon sequences
that spawned all the sorry Nat sorry, I can't look
away memes on social so I directed episode six, one
that everybody talks about in terms of the intimacy. There
was a very specific journey that the character was going
(31:37):
on in that whole episode it was almost the point
of the episode, as it was the end of her
emotional journey. It was a very difficult episode to direct, actually,
and it was something that Chris and I spoke a
lot about because it was about something that couldn't be
(31:58):
shown or spoke of. So you had to tell the
story in really in a clever way, and so as
a director it was a real challenge what would happen.
We would speak in detail about the contents of the
scene and what we were trying to communicate with the
scene with Reggae and Phoebe, and then very much like
(32:21):
a stunt coordinator, Lizzie would go and work on the
scene meanwhile, and certainly in the early days, I would
be doing a dance rehearsal over here, maybe a stunt
rehearsal over here. We had a separate room for the
intimacy rehearsals, and that's often how we do dance rehearsals,
stunt rehearsals. The expert works with the actors and then
(32:41):
the director comes back. And I love doing those episodes
where it's really it's all about the emotions of the characters.
It's not about all the big show. All the show
was in episode one, but for episode six it was
almost like it's like a crucible of emotions, you know,
(33:03):
And that's where I really that's what I really love
to do. Those scenes were telling the story of the show.
I mean really telling the story of this particular show.
And what she did was in a rolted telling that story.
I mean, if she didn't coordinate it the way that
she did and make it that she was selling the story.
And I think that that's important. Bridgeton. I'm so glad
(33:25):
you came. Dare not miss it. Please come in, make
yourself at home. I would show you around, but those
duty corns. So one of the scenes that is really
prominent in Bridgeton is when Benedict visits sort of the
artist's abode and he walks in and there is a
(33:46):
lot going on. It's sort of a feast for his eyes.
You walk in the room and there are you know,
paintings of nude people all over the place. On the room.
To his right as he walks past, there are a
sort of nude dancers covered in very sheer materials. What
are you doing here? Beautifully choreographed by by Jack Murphy.
And then you walk through a little bit more and
(34:09):
there are you know, life models of people and standing
in various positions being painted and admired by lots of
different people. You've also got lots of people are kissings,
and then it culminates at the end with this threesome.
Pat it was there was a lot going on that day.
It was not a but we had to sort of
film all of those sections individually, and Shari, who was
(34:30):
directing that, had a lot on her plate that day,
and we sort of went from snapshot to snapshot to snapshots,
looking at all the various different types of nudity and
really sort of what works of feeling we were going
to get from that. Something that's really interesting is that
there are so many scenes that you have not seen
(34:51):
that were filmed. We filmed so many intimate scenes I
can think of potentially at least ten that did not
make the final cut. So there were a lot more
than shown in the in the series. Really like so
a lot of these scenes were portraying Simon as quite
(35:12):
a lot more scandalous than we see in the trailer.
You'll see him getting out of beds with a lady
who's who's lying in the bed. We must have filmed
probably at least another two of those with him getting
out of bed with various women, and also there was
another scene on the dark Walk where he is meeting
various prostitutes and sort of doing various things with them.
(35:33):
There was also there was also a threesome with Simon
as well. It did not make the final cut. And
of course we were doing lots of antics, which meant,
you know, rolling off each other, and that's not You
got a huge amount of space to work with, so
you had to be very careful about where you start
because if you don't start where you need to, you'll
be on the floor because you'll roll off. And so
we had to really be very careful about working on
(35:55):
regency side beds because they're just not the same. I
didn't even think about that. Yeah, no, neither until people
falling off beds. Any other thoughts, Lizzie before we close out.
I think the cast did so well in terms of connection.
They did an incredible job at creating this world that
(36:17):
even is covered in restraint, there is still like those smiles,
those laughs, those knowing looks. They played with so many
sort of modern flirting tactics, which is all about the
eye contact, and I think people have really enjoyed that,
particularly in the moment of the pandemic. So I mean
I have to thank them for you know, taking the
risk in um, you know, desiring for that role to
(36:39):
be part of the crew and to have and to
have such respect for it. Lizzie, thank you so much
for your time in chandaland Fashion. Sex in Bridgerton is
centered on story, and it's even a window to the
backstory to some of the characters that we may not
get to see as often as we would like to.
(37:00):
Romance the intimacy in Bridgerton also offers us a window
into what the future may hold. There are the big
ones like Daphne's a mob now, but then there are
the other little storylines that kept us laughing and intrigued,
like Lord Burrbrook and his escapades out in the country,
which brings me to our next episode, which will be
(37:21):
about Scandal and Lady Whistledown. But anyway, we hope you
enjoyed it, Like share, subscribe, tell us what you want
to hear, and we'll see you next time on Bridgerton
The Official podcast. Bridgerton the Official Podcast is executive produced
by Lauren Holman, Sandy Bailey, Holly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins.
(37:45):
Our producer is Chris van Duson and our editor is
Vincent de Johnny. Thanks for listening, Bridgerton. The Official podcast
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you download your favorite podcasts.
I mean, my favorite scene in the show is probably
Violet talking to Daphne about sex. It's so awkward. I
love how awkward it is. There are some things you
ought to know. If it is this difficult to discuss,
how difficult must it be to before it is? Not? Darest,
It is most natural, much in the way the rain
soaks a field in autumn and in spring flowers grow. Yeah,
(00:21):
is this what your sex talk was like? Is this
all the birds and the bees talk one for you?
Welcome to Bridgeton the official podcast where we're going behind
the scenes of Bridgerton. I'm Gabrielle Collins. Hello, Jess Brownell.
Here on this episode we're going to be talking about sex.
(00:43):
I imagine for a lot of people it's a shock
when oh, it's still going. Oh, and it's still going
five minutes later, or, in the case of episode six,
twenty minutes later. Right, you've posted the sorry not sorry,
I can't look away from this sex montage memes, You've
seen the what is a penis spoofs, spicy TikTok musicals,
(01:05):
and some of us have even indulged in soaking the
field in autumn a little early. Gab I don't know
if I'm ever going to be able to go through
a thunderstorm without thinking about sex. Now is that we
are in In this episode, we're going to look at
how Bridgetin got all of our minds and the fanciest
of gutters. So you know, I had that experience when
(01:28):
I first read the books. I actually listened to them
on audiotape. And you know, with romance novels, the first
two thirds of the book are pretty PG, especially with
a regency romance novel. It's flirty and there's some double entendre,
but it's pretty. It's pretty PG. And then all of
(01:49):
a sudden you're in very descriptive, well written when it's
Julia Quinn sex scenes, and it is it's a little blushy,
it is. I kept laughing during some of the sex
scenes because clearly I'm five years old, but I also
was intrigued by all that went into making it happen,
because it doesn't just happen on its own. These scenes
(02:11):
are rehearsed, practiced over and over and over again. So
we're going to be talking with intimacy coordinator Elizabeth Talbot,
and we'll also talk to directors Tom Barica and Julianne
Robinson about some of the sexiest scenes that they directed.
You'll find some surprises within that, And of course, Jess,
we're going to be breaking down the story full backdrops
(02:33):
behind the sex and intimacy in Bridgerton and all of
those many layers and ways that you can slice and
dice that we should probably unpack sex and intimacy in Bridgerton,
starting with Daphanie's education. After all, Jess did bring up
the Violet gives the sex talk scene. Jess, why is
the sex talk scene your favorite scene? That's where it
(02:56):
feels it really reads you into the period. You're like,
oh wow, they really didn't know anything about sex, and
it gave me a lot of sympathy for Daphnee to
feel like, these girls have the whole weight of the
world placed on them on their marriage choice, their marriage match,
and they don't even know about the best part of it.
So what it sounds like is all of the regency
(03:18):
restrictions the writers learned about came crashing against the final
moment of what we know as Daphne's youth. That moment
is loaded with storytelling, and it is of course why
executive producer Shonda Rhymes also loved this scene for its
performances and its backstory. I don't know, I spent a
lot of time thinking about all this stuff. I'm like, so,
you know, Phoebe's yelling at her mother for not telling
(03:40):
her more, and I'm like, nobody probably ever told violent
anything like Lady Bridgerton probably an avenue, you know, much
of anything at all. She didn't have any words to
express what she was trying to tell her daughter. Having
that talk like that was probably like the boldest thing
she'd ever done in her life, you know, in terms
of that the way more than her mother ever did
for her. And I thought that was fascinating. You know,
(04:01):
when Violet tells off her son, when she puts those
children in their place, she is interesting because you realize,
like she's also not only been through a lot, but
I mean, who has eight children and gets through it
all loses her husband and their children are resentful of her.
Like that moment when Phoebe is upset with her mother
for not telling her, you know, what she needed to
(04:21):
know for her wedding night. It was very interesting. What's
so interesting about it is that it has nothing to
do with the romance. We associate with bodies blending into one.
Shanda is hinting at something that is dynamically Shonda land
the build up. There were eight writers on season one.
(04:43):
We were in a windowless room in Hollywood. We spent
the first day, you know, with Chris talking us through
his vision for the show, what he wanted for the tone,
how he saw the episodes playing out. And I think
there was this clear distinction from the beginning that we
weren't doing a traditional period piece, that we wanted it
(05:04):
to be sexy. We wanted it to be juicy. So
did you start by combing through the books line by
line to extract some of this tone. When we were
writing the show, we realized that if we adapted the
books directly and you know, it was all sweet and
innocent for six episodes, and then suddenly in episode six
(05:25):
or seven they got married and there was all of
that sex, it was gonna be a little shocking. And
so we wanted to carry the tone, the sort of
sexy tone, throughout the beginning episodes of the show. So
it was about finding moments for Anthony and Sienna to
be sneaking off, for Benedict to be observing things in
the Demi mom, and that to me is the element
(05:46):
of the build up and the heightened stakes around love
that Shonda Land bakes into story. And Jess, you've been
a writer and story editor with Shonda Land for years,
so you know, yeah, I think that's true. I think that,
you know, Shonda and Shondaland in general, part of the
language of these shows is that longing that will they
(06:06):
or won't they? You know, it was a Meredith Derek thing.
I think it's a Fits and Live thing. I think
it's definitely a Simon a Daphne thing. And even though
Fits and Live and Meredith and Derek are modern characters,
if you look at those shows, there are moments where
there's a lot of drawn out longing, and the regency
(06:27):
setting made it all the easier to really foreground that
element in the TV landscape. Shondaland has made its mark
by shifting the way we see women in relationships and
women in power. To me, it feels very important that
when we are telling story that the women feel empowered,
(06:49):
that the story makes the women feel empowered, that the
storyline for the character is empowered, and that the story
that's being told has something to do with what we're seeing, like,
we're seeing this for a reason. We're not seeing this
just because it sounded fund to the director or it
sounded fund to the writer, like, Oh, we're telling a
story because we're growing a character and we're taking them someplace,
(07:14):
and there's a point. Shanda Rhimes is known for creating
characters that elbowed their way into the space, bringing a
roundness and a realness and a sexual healthiness to female
characters on television. I sometimes I'm like, this feels it
just doesn't have anything to do with the story. I
don't know why this woman is naked, why they're making
out this way. It doesn't have anything to do with
(07:35):
the story that's being told. That feels cratuitous and there's
no point to it. I remember one day I was
writing one of the sex scenes for the show. I was,
you know, sitting in my office one evening in the
dark room, and I was a lot of our language
that we use on the show is very colorful, like
in the action lines. Some writers write very spare action lines,
(07:56):
but our voice on the show was to you know,
really describe I've in detail, like what people are feeling
and what they're doing, and so I'm sitting there and
I realized I have written like a three page blow
by blow no pun intended of exactly what this sex
scene is. And then I thought about Chris fandus and
reading this, and I thought, if he's expecting me to
(08:18):
say and then they have sex and that's it. If
he receives a three page document where I am describing
like every moment they're breath, hovering, blah blah blah blah blah,
I'm gonna be so embarrassed. And so I went in
and had a chat with him in which I felt
very much like Daphne talking to Violet about sex and
asked him, was I supposed to be going really in
(08:38):
depth for this scene? Like how much detail do you want?
And he was like, oh, I want detail. So I
went for it. And there are levels of going forward, right,
there's diving into your characters most private thoughts, and then
there's the tease of courtship and barely their touch is right. Yeah,
non sex, but just as passionate scenes like the dream
(09:00):
sequence in the beginning of episode three. It's so sensual.
And so the dream sequence in the episode three came
about because we were wanting to bring some thirst and
sexiness into earlier episodes. You know, it was a good
way to get inside Daphne's head, and it was important
for us to keep the desire alive for the character
(09:27):
and for the audience. You know, we don't want you
to have to wait necessarily till episode six or seven
to see these two characters touching and holding each other
because of regency rules. You know, we had to find
creative ways to get around that. The rules were sexy.
The rules are sexy. Get anticipation that thirst. Yeah, I
(09:47):
thought that was great. Yeah, absolutely, We really strived in
every episode to find moments for Daphne and Simon to
really be thirsting for each other. Thirst was a word
that got you in the room a lot. You know,
we wanted to keep in mind that this is a
romance and it is a sexy story, and finding the
moments where their hands graze each other, or where their
(10:09):
breath stops, or where she's having you know, sexy dreams
about him. It was very important to Chris and to
all of us as writers to keep that alive throughout
the series. I find that incredibly seductive without being overtly obvious.
Tom Erica, he directed in my opinion, the thirstiest of
the episodes, and that's episode three. The way Tom puts
(10:31):
it stretching out that timeline of courtship was erotic. One
of my favorite scenes that I directed was an episode three.
I think it was a three page scene and there
was a whole lot. There was this whole silent part
that Chris had written out very specifically about what happens
in that moment where their hands just about touch. So
there was a very specific shot of just focusing on
(10:53):
their hands. It's this moment where like they're both thinking
the same thing, did that really just happen? And are
you feeling what I feeling? And they want to hold
that look just one bit longer before they know they
have to go in the other room, and I feel
like so much is said in that look. It's a
testament to how much actors bring to the story, you know,
I mean the way that they did it. I was
(11:15):
just like, that is everything. I remember. I had them
facing in different directions because they clearly wanted to be
near each other, But how do we get to that point?
I was wondering why you did that? Yeah, that wasn't
in the script, and I really wanted to sort of
earn when they do finally look at one another, the
moment where they kind of look and take each other
in where he's impressed by her insight into something, and
(11:40):
then she gets lost in the painting, but she's facing
in one direction looking another painting, yet they're right next
to each other. The others all sent an me very
grand and impressive, but this one, this one is intimate.
I found that so sexy. That there was the inevitable
and there was that a goal attraction, but we're playing
(12:01):
against that until really earn it. The DNA of that scene,
I wanted helpable chemistry and connection that they have as
they kind of feel the heat from each other. But
there was so much with the words and the chemistry
(12:23):
that Reggae and Phoebe brought to that which I thought
was just outstanding. And that chemistry is I think, really
gives the audience a lot of build up to what
is eventually where they do come together. It was very
fun playing in that scene. I really enjoyed that scene
a lot. As Tom breaks down the anatomy of this
defining moment in Daphne and Simon's friendship, I'm immediately reminded
of a conversation I had with Kelly Valentine Hendry, the
(12:46):
casting director. So that was a very important scene for
me in the casting, and it's a real moment with
Daphne and Simon where you see the connection. The two
of them find themselves in a room by themselves, and
Simon realizes, I think at that moment when he properly
falls in love with her. I mean, obviously he falls
in love with her at love at first sight when
they bump into each other on the dance floor, but
(13:07):
that was the moment and the two of their hands
nearly touch. Where we were casting that scene, that was
a real moment where we could tell if people had
chemistry or not. The chemistry that Kelly is talking about
ripples throughout all relationships in Bridgerton and is multiplied by
(13:29):
the actors and actresses and creatives on the show. H
The production did such an incredible job interpreting the scripts
and they brought an incredible amount to the story that
we could not have even imagined. So there were months
in between us finishing writing our scripts and then months
later me seeing it cut and going, oh my gosh,
(13:50):
it's real. It was just an incredible effort I think
this all star cast and crew. One of the dynamic
members of the production is Lizzie tell It. She was
Bridgerton's intimacy coordinator and kind of the director of the
ballet of sensual expression on camera. So my first encounter
(14:11):
with Bridgerton was an email I received asking to you interview.
So I made the mistake of asking my mother to
read the first Bridgeton book because I was away at
the time and I'd forgotten my kindle, And I said, oh,
I rang my mama said, old monkey, you could just
quickly read this book. Just let me know what you think.
I got a phone call a bit later saying, well,
it's certainly going to be your type of job. When
(14:34):
we come back from the break, we'll learn more about
Lizzie Talbot and her role as intimacy coordinator on Bridgerton.
Welcome back. Lizzie schooled me on intimacy coaching and best
(14:57):
practices for an equitable and enjoyable experience on said, and
I could give you a beautiful soliloquy introducing Lizzie and
the importance of her role as an intimacy coach on Bridgerton,
but I'll let Executive producer Shanda Rhimes tell you, I mean,
I actually put out a memo to our actors that said,
truly said, if you want to wear a snowsuit while
(15:18):
you're doing your love scenes, then you will wear a snowsuit.
That is fine, and it's up to the director to
figure out how that's going to work. You know, prior
to days before intimacy coordinators, but this particular show is
a show that is basically about sex, which makes the
idea that you're going to wear a snowsuit impossible. So
to me, having an intimacy coordinator, which we have on
(15:40):
all our shows, but having one on this show was vital,
and having the right one was vital, and I feel
like it was just without her. I can't even imagine
for the actors, for the director, for everybody, like what
she does is such an important part of getting those
scenes right and making those scenes asing as they were
(16:00):
for the audience. That would not have happened without her
and her abilities. Here's Lucy Talbot. One of the things
that was so different about Bridgeton is that the producers,
the executive producers, the directors were incredibly supportive of the
role and the process. They were being incredibly brave by
taking on this new role as well, because they didn't
know what to expect. And something that I will always
(16:23):
take away from my time there was just how patient
and how respectful Chris and the team were about the role.
It was a very empowering experience because I was invited
into all of the conversations. I was able to lead
the choreography. I was able to work in collaboration with
the director about what they wanted, to see what their
(16:45):
vision was, and to help them realize that vision. And
it felt incredibly involved, which was really exciting, and you know,
at the time it really revolutionary, you know, to be
working with the directors, and I know that directors come
into working with intimacy coordinative you know, quite a bit
of apprehension. I mean, directors have done intimacy scenes for
a very long time, long before we came along. And
(17:08):
the sense of being welcomed to the forefront by the
directors was really wonderful. What an interesting job, very very
and she kind of schooled me on how important her
role is and how they jumped right into the deep end.
On the very first day of filming The Infamous Libraries,
I heard that, Yeah, that's wild. I don't understand why
(17:30):
more people aren't excited about and embracing the use of
an intimacy coordinator for the dignity of the actors, but
also for the magic of the scenes and for the
comfort of everybody there. You're not giving up control. You
are promoting a sense of everybody working together to get
something done that needs to be done in a way
(17:50):
that's really important and right. In general, one of the
things that we do is intimacy coordinators is look at
all types of intimacy. I think the perspective from a
lot of people is that intimacy coordinators are just there
for simulated sex and nunity, which is true we are,
(18:11):
but we also do so much work with intimacy of
a non sexualized nature. So for example, you know, best friends, parent, child, brother, sister.
You know, we do a lot of work with that
as well. And one of the things like that that's
really important to think about is that those are still
very intimate relationships that have to be formed quickly. Because
(18:32):
these actors may have only met, you know, recently, they
might not know each other very well, and yet they
have to portray a very deep, very personal, very intimate
relationship with one another that is not just under the
blanket of sex as it were. Director Tom Verica wholeheartedly agrees.
And it's complicated, you know, not only the you know
the time, the period of which there's expectancy of how
(18:55):
one's behavior is. You have that obstacle. You have the
very clear obstacle that Chris sets forth very beautifully in
the first episode, where it's kind of an arranged deal
just for their own each of their own individual ones.
But they're what we're witnessing, and what we're seeing is
falling in love, and that's to have to overcome those
obstacles and how you get to that point. I just
(19:16):
think it's far more interesting and I think it's far
more what we go through in life. You know. I
think of my first meeting with my wife, and we
just fought like cats and dogs, but it was very
clear that we were you know, we were attracted. We
were set up on a blind date and we kind
of went at each other and our friends were like, well,
this is a mistake, this is never going to work.
And you know, here we are twenty years later, we're married,
(19:36):
and but I think there's that chemistry that just happens
and it manifests itself in so many different ways. So
the exploration of relationship dynamic is laid out just absolutely
beautifully in this series. There was a lot going on
in Bridgeton there, you know, so many different scenes to painting,
so many different types of intimacies and so many different positionings,
and they were also challenging in their own way. They
(20:00):
all had to have research behind them, they all had
to have rehearsals, they all had to have you know,
different sets of choreography. I mean, I think for a
couple of scenes we had, you know, we would present
two or three, sometimes even four options for the directors
to see. And again, as so much of it, which
was really great is is actor led. You know, no
one knows the characters better than the actors, and if
(20:22):
they have an impulse to do something, it's really important
to investigate it and to give it the time and
space that it needs to see if it develops, and
so often it did because you know, they are living
and breathing these characters every day. All the actors on
the show so studious. You know, they really are giving
everything that they have to immersing themselves in these characters
(20:43):
in this world, and they often came up with such,
you know, really beautiful ideas that really important to explore
and to go with. Lizzie, can you describe what being
an advocate for actress is like in your role as
an intimacy coach. You know, you're an actor, but you
still own your own body. You know, you can still
decide what you do to it. You're at work, we
(21:04):
are creating scenes of intimacy, but we are also making
sure that the actors are safe and that you know,
at no point are they like violating their own bodies
to create entertainment, Like, that's not what we want to
do here. It must have been interesting for them, you know.
I've worked on shows where when we get to sexy scenes,
(21:24):
we kind of just say and then the actors do
whatever they're comfortable with. But with this show, we did
have to choreograph exactly what was happening a little bit
more when we were writing it, because there's so much
storytelling in the sex scenes, and so I'm sure the
intimacy coordinator had a big job to make sure the
(21:44):
actors were comfortable, which obviously is still important, but also
to hit all those beats. One of the great things
about Bridgeton was the amount of rehearsal time that they
gave us, and that is not common on every show,
and so it was really helpful because at no point
then where we ever on set going, oh what do
we do? Because we always knew what we're going to do,
because we've had so many hours of rehearsals working it
(22:07):
all out. We'd try different positions, We've tried different sets
of choreography, we tried different techniques to make sure that
we were getting exactly what we wanted. We were working
in collaboration with the directors beforehand so that when we
arrived on set, that director knew exactly what we were doing.
What were some of the more challenging moments or scenes
to choreograph. One of the scenes that I had with
(22:28):
Tom because it was the scene of Daphne's first experience
with masturbation. That's a difficult scene to shoot because you know,
Phoebe took on a huge amount there, because it's quite
difficult to do solo sex scenes. You've got no one
to sort of bounce ideas off, you've got no one
to connect with, you've got no one to sort of,
(22:49):
you know, play around with, and so see, oh does
this work, and so you know, we had some you know,
discussions about what it would look like, and we know
what were the sort of rhythmic be this section, and
you know, what were we really trying to show throughout
all of this and what was going to be the
tone of it. And again, it's that it's going back
(23:09):
to that concept of delicacy and dexterity. It was particularly
delicate in the sequence that I had where Daphne is
in bed thinking at night and it sends into the
flashback and pulling back from those images where she's exploring.
And I knew Phoebe the actor, was slightly uncomfortable about
certain aspects of it. Having been an actor, I know
(23:31):
what actors go through. It's incredibly private for Daphne, but
it's also exploratory, and it's also something that you know,
it's a concept of discovery because this is something that
she's never done before. She never even knew that she
should or that she should even consider it, or that
it even existed. It's just so sort of fascinating to
(23:55):
work with that. And you know, Tom was so wonderful
about it and incredibly helpful and supportive because it's a
tough scene to do. I really want to create that
environment of trust and protection in safety because it is
a safety net. We had a wonderful intimacy coordinator, so
(24:16):
I really make it a collaboration because ultimately the actor
is the one who's the most exposed. They're the ones
who were most vulnerable. They're the ones who were performing it.
If they're not feeling comfortable, that's going to come across.
So I kind of very early on started talking to
her about it and bet laying ground rules of what
her comfort level is. You know. I sometimes play music
during a few takes so an actor can kind of
loosen up and get into it, and had them pick Oh,
(24:38):
Jeff ja I was brilliant at that. We often had
like a Jeff Jazz sort of intimate soundtrack. I think
he blasted out slow Hands, you know, the scene with
Daphne and Simon by the late when they're not wearing
very much, and it was Yeah, it was really really
good fun. You know, we had all all the writers
(25:00):
in the room, had read all the books coming into
the room, like all eight of the Bridges and books,
and so what's really fun about her books, I think
is there is this you know, long emotional build up
and build up and build up, until finally, three quarters
of the way through the book, the characters finally sleep
together and you get a little bit of action. I
think this is why they call, you know, these romance
(25:22):
novels poor and for women, because you get that long
build up intension. I don't know why I had resubscribed
to this idea that the Regency era was sexless. I
didn't really know how detail the sex gets in these books.
And you know, when you read these books, there's not
much sex for three quarters of the book. And so
suddenly they get married and you're reading like his you know,
(25:48):
the language they use is really it's like something about
like her maidenhead and his warrior, and you're like, oh,
there there's genitalia in this book. We're really getting a
play by play. So that was the saying, and it
was something that we all had to get comfortable with
working on the show Goodness, No No No. I talk
about sex all the time at work that it's too funny.
(26:10):
I mean, there's that scene where they are having sex
on like a picnic blanket outside and I'm like, this looks,
it looks it's so real. But you know that's One
of the things with regency characters is there is this
desire because they're treated in such a perm and proper way, uh,
(26:30):
you know, to think of them as other. But they're human,
they're horny, they they're having sex. You know, their their
eyes are lining up when they see a naked man
like That was one of the realizations that I think
allowed us all to access these characters and write them
just as if we were writing a modern take character.
(26:52):
We'll be right back, Welcome back to bridget In the
EFFICI podcast, we've talked about different levels of intimacy in Bridgerton,
advocacy for actors when that intimacy becomes more sexually centered,
and now we're getting into more of the story behind
Daphne's sexual awakening. So let's just scratch the surface of
(27:16):
the female gaze here. Sean Dea rhymes. You know, on
network television, if you could shoot somebody in the face,
you can show it on network television, But you could
not show a man put his hand on a woman's
upper flank hip, which I found crazy. So I used
to say, like I want my daughters to grow up
to have wonderful, healthy sex lives. I do not with
him to grow up to shoot somebody in the face.
So I don't understand why we show these things in
(27:37):
the opposite ways, as if one's okay and one's not.
Let's circle back around to Lizzie Talbot. So Chris Van
Duson was adamant that this was going to be from
the female gaze. It was something that he was very
clear about from the beginning and something that I just
really loved and wanted to run with. Julianne Robinson was
also one of the first directors I worked with on
the show, and she was very on board with this
idea as well, and it took us all the way
(27:58):
through the series single episode. We were constantly thinking about, Okay,
so this has to be from the female gaze. This
isn't sort of a boy's story. When are sexual creatures
the same way men are, and you know, most of
the time when you're watching a show, it feels like
women are being shown through male gaze very gratuitously. So
we're talking about the female gaze. But I had to
ask Tom about another very specific kind of gaze, Daphne's
(28:24):
longing look at that spoon, which I think has its
own Twitter account. It's an awakening. Yeah, it's innocence and
being drawn into this attraction. Not sure what that is.
And Chris and I were sitting there and we were
talking about those shots because it was it was in
the script, but again articulating visually kind of what he wanted.
(28:44):
And he was sitting there and I said, you know
what if Phoebe playing Daphne is watching him, and I
wanted her to kind of be entranced by just being
drawn into him in that moment and slowing that down,
so we shot it at a slower speed to kind
of again put you in her mind. It's not over hurt,
but you definitely are clocked into experiencing what she's experiencing
(29:04):
in that moment. And I remember, as I did slow mo,
I checked with Chris to make sure and he was like,
I love that. I said, is it too much as
a pushing? And then I went even closer because again
it's such an intimate moment in a public place, a
very specific point of view that each character is having
in this point Daphne's point of view that we shot
(29:25):
even closer, so it was almost like that she was
kissing him or being that intimate there and the distance
that they were sitting. For the rest of the scene
played as is, and it's all very traditional how we
cover it, but that moment we wanted to pop in
because there was, like you say, a bit more of
a hype moment. It's really kind of are we honoring
kind of the point of view of what the character
(29:46):
is feeling in that moment, and that was a that
was one that I thought we succeeded in sort of
articulating that moment for Daphne and what she was experiencing.
This is something that we haven't seen before and it's
really sort of color nominated. In the wedding night when
you have Daphne lying on the bed and Daphne is
actually covered at that point, you're not seeing any nudity
(30:07):
from her, but what you are looking at is Daphne's
view of a naked man for the first time, which
is very unusual. You don't often see it from that perspective. Normally,
it's the female lying on the bed and the viewer
is like looking at the image of them nude, whereas
it's completely different from this perspective and you see her
face that's what you're looking at. Really, it's a huge
(30:30):
shift Simon and dresses and Daphne's eyes slide up and like, oh,
I've never seen one of those before. Daphne would have
nothing to compare and naked man's body too, So her
reaction to Simon's naked body is very pure. It is
just like, this is really the first time she's ever
seen anything. It's so different. It's so different, you don't
(30:54):
see it from that perspective very often at all. Because
and really like that, I mean, obviously we've got you know,
reggae sat in the paeground, but in the background we
were really looking at is the face of Daphne. It's
that realization that for the first time she is seeing
a very real, very human naked man in front of her,
which she would only before have seen and you know,
(31:14):
like paintings at best. Let's get into more of this
with director Julianne Robinson. Julianne Robinson directed the Honeymoon sequences
that spawned all the sorry Nat sorry, I can't look
away memes on social so I directed episode six, one
that everybody talks about in terms of the intimacy. There
was a very specific journey that the character was going
(31:37):
on in that whole episode it was almost the point
of the episode, as it was the end of her
emotional journey. It was a very difficult episode to direct, actually,
and it was something that Chris and I spoke a
lot about because it was about something that couldn't be
(31:58):
shown or spoke of. So you had to tell the
story in really in a clever way, and so as
a director it was a real challenge what would happen.
We would speak in detail about the contents of the
scene and what we were trying to communicate with the
scene with Reggae and Phoebe, and then very much like
(32:21):
a stunt coordinator, Lizzie would go and work on the
scene meanwhile, and certainly in the early days, I would
be doing a dance rehearsal over here, maybe a stunt
rehearsal over here. We had a separate room for the
intimacy rehearsals, and that's often how we do dance rehearsals,
stunt rehearsals. The expert works with the actors and then
(32:41):
the director comes back. And I love doing those episodes
where it's really it's all about the emotions of the characters.
It's not about all the big show. All the show
was in episode one, but for episode six it was
almost like it's like a crucible of emotions, you know,
(33:03):
And that's where I really that's what I really love
to do. Those scenes were telling the story of the show.
I mean really telling the story of this particular show.
And what she did was in a rolted telling that story.
I mean, if she didn't coordinate it the way that
she did and make it that she was selling the story.
And I think that that's important. Bridgeton. I'm so glad
(33:25):
you came. Dare not miss it. Please come in, make
yourself at home. I would show you around, but those
duty corns. So one of the scenes that is really
prominent in Bridgeton is when Benedict visits sort of the
artist's abode and he walks in and there is a
(33:46):
lot going on. It's sort of a feast for his eyes.
You walk in the room and there are you know,
paintings of nude people all over the place. On the room.
To his right as he walks past, there are a
sort of nude dancers covered in very sheer materials. What
are you doing here? Beautifully choreographed by by Jack Murphy.
And then you walk through a little bit more and
(34:09):
there are you know, life models of people and standing
in various positions being painted and admired by lots of
different people. You've also got lots of people are kissings,
and then it culminates at the end with this threesome.
Pat it was there was a lot going on that day.
It was not a but we had to sort of
film all of those sections individually, and Shari, who was
(34:30):
directing that, had a lot on her plate that day,
and we sort of went from snapshot to snapshot to snapshots,
looking at all the various different types of nudity and
really sort of what works of feeling we were going
to get from that. Something that's really interesting is that
there are so many scenes that you have not seen
(34:51):
that were filmed. We filmed so many intimate scenes I
can think of potentially at least ten that did not
make the final cut. So there were a lot more
than shown in the in the series. Really like so
a lot of these scenes were portraying Simon as quite
(35:12):
a lot more scandalous than we see in the trailer.
You'll see him getting out of beds with a lady
who's who's lying in the bed. We must have filmed
probably at least another two of those with him getting
out of bed with various women, and also there was
another scene on the dark Walk where he is meeting
various prostitutes and sort of doing various things with them.
(35:33):
There was also there was also a threesome with Simon
as well. It did not make the final cut. And
of course we were doing lots of antics, which meant,
you know, rolling off each other, and that's not You
got a huge amount of space to work with, so
you had to be very careful about where you start
because if you don't start where you need to, you'll
be on the floor because you'll roll off. And so
we had to really be very careful about working on
(35:55):
regency side beds because they're just not the same. I
didn't even think about that. Yeah, no, neither until people
falling off beds. Any other thoughts, Lizzie before we close out.
I think the cast did so well in terms of connection.
They did an incredible job at creating this world that
(36:17):
even is covered in restraint, there is still like those smiles,
those laughs, those knowing looks. They played with so many
sort of modern flirting tactics, which is all about the
eye contact, and I think people have really enjoyed that,
particularly in the moment of the pandemic. So I mean
I have to thank them for you know, taking the
risk in um, you know, desiring for that role to
(36:39):
be part of the crew and to have and to
have such respect for it. Lizzie, thank you so much
for your time in chandaland Fashion. Sex in Bridgerton is
centered on story, and it's even a window to the
backstory to some of the characters that we may not
get to see as often as we would like to.
(37:00):
Romance the intimacy in Bridgerton also offers us a window
into what the future may hold. There are the big
ones like Daphne's a mob now, but then there are
the other little storylines that kept us laughing and intrigued,
like Lord Burrbrook and his escapades out in the country,
which brings me to our next episode, which will be
(37:21):
about Scandal and Lady Whistledown. But anyway, we hope you
enjoyed it, Like share, subscribe, tell us what you want
to hear, and we'll see you next time on Bridgerton
The Official podcast. Bridgerton the Official Podcast is executive produced
by Lauren Holman, Sandy Bailey, Holly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins.
(37:45):
Our producer is Chris van Duson and our editor is
Vincent de Johnny. Thanks for listening, Bridgerton. The Official podcast
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you download your favorite podcasts.
Host
Gabrielle Collins
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