Sex Scene “Expert” Michael Douglas Shares His Secret To Filming A Good Sex Scene

Michael Douglas proclaimed himself the “expert of sex scenes” during a recent panel at the Cannes Film Festival – and shared his secret to success.

The actor famously starred opposite Sharon Stone in the racy 1994 movie Basic Instinct. It turns out the secret to successfully filming sex scenes for movies is quite simple.

“The secret, I guess — since I’ve become the expert on sex scenes in movies — is rehearsal,” Douglas said.

He likened it to rehearsing or coordinating a fight scene.“You do a fight scene, you have to work out the choreography,” he said. “When you do that you go, ‘OK, I throw a punch, boom, you go back and you come back, you throw, boom.’ You start very slowly and then you work your way up to a faster pace.”

“Well, the same thing, and particularly if you’re doing a love scene, it’s important for the lady that you’re not taking advantage,” Douglas explained. “You tell them beforehand when you’re starting: ‘All right, I’m going to put my hand here. Is that all right? OK, you put your hand here and then we’re going to go kiss, kiss, and then we are going to go down.’”

“It’s very well choreographed,” he added.

Douglas certainly knows a thing or two about filming racy scenes. Before he starred in Basic Instinct, he also played Glenn Close‘s lover in Fatal Attraction.

The career-defining movie did not affect Stone as positively. The actress recently revealed that she lost custody of her son while going through a divorce with her then-husband Phil Bronstein. According to the actress, the judge presiding over the case accused her of making “sex movies,” referring to Basic Instinct.

Douglas’ career has gotten considerably less racy in the decades since Basic Instinct.

His most recent work can be caught in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.