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Putting it all out there! Tell Me Lies captivated fans with its steamy sex scenes — and the cast has been candid about the work that goes into those memorable moments.
The Hulu series, which debuted in September 2022, introduced the tumultuous relationship between college students Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen (Jackson White). As viewers explored an eight-year time period of the couple’s lives, they also caught snippets of how the relationship affected those around Lucy and Stephen.
Patten previously recalled how daunting it felt to see the amount of sex scenes in the show.
“When I read the scripts, it was terrifying. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is going to be scary, I’m going to feel very exposed and self conscious,’” she revealed to TooFab shortly after the show premiered. “Just reading it, what made me feel better about it was these scenes were so necessary to the story and none of them felt exploitative in any way and they were all necessary to the characters and really important to show the dynamic between them and how the sexual dynamic between them changes throughout the season and how real that felt, so that made me feel a lot better about it.”
According to executive producer Meaghan Oppenheimer, it was important to ensure that “every sex scene served a purpose” to the story. “Some of the scenes are sexy, some of them are really not sexy. Some of them are really upsetting sex scenes or awkward,” Oppenheimer added at the time, referring to the show’s intimacy coordinator, Dr. Tiffanie Henry.
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The showrunner detailed the discussions that took place between the crew and the cast, saying, “No one was ever even slightly pushed to do something they didn’t want to do. It was always a conversation and making sure everyone felt really comfortable and really safe. We really rehearsed everything out so there were no surprises on the day. It’s like a dance, you have to choreograph it and it’s actually quite mechanical when you get down to it.”
Meanwhile, White praised his connection with his scene partner for helping ease his nerves.
“I think it’s so specific to who you’re working with and [I was] so comfortable with Grace from the start, we were so communicative about everything that I had no worries about that, about portraying any of that stuff,” the Ambulance actor, who has sparked offscreen romance rumors with Patten, shared. “I also was gonna say that, I haven’t been doing this that long but I’ve showed my butt in everything, so I just associate acting with your butt is involved, in some part of the piece, at one part in the story.”
Scroll down for the Tell Me Lies cast’s most candid quotes about creating those steamy moments:
