What It Feels Like for a Girl stars Calam Lynch and Jake Dunn have talked about filming the queer sex scenes in the new series.
The BBC queer drama, based on journalist Paris Lees’ memoir of the same name, follows Byron, played by Ellis Howard, as they navigate queer life in early noughties Nottingham.
Lynch, who plays Byron’s love interest Max, said filming the sex scenes was always intense.
Picking up on that, Dunn, who plays drug dealer Liam, elaborated, saying: “Day one, you’ve got to go there and feel safe with each other, to honour what those parts are. It’s scary.”
In the case of What It Feels Like For a Girl, especially, intimacy was “always on a knife edge”, he added.
@pinknews PinkNews spoke with ‘What It Feels Like For A Girl’ stars Calam Lynch and Jake Dunn to explore what it’s like navigating queer sex scenes on set. #calamlynch #jakedunn #whatitfeelslikeforagirl #tvtok #queer #intimacy ♬ When I Look At You (Instrumental) – BLVKSHP
After Liam enters a relationship with Byron, he encourages him into sex work, according to the BBC. Dunn then got into more of the personal effects sex scenes can have on actors.
“It can feel very sobering, quite quickly. I actually [needed] to take my shirt off in rehearsal so that when we actually record it, I [wasn’t] petrified.”
Lynch said he felt much the same although “different actors need different things”. What helped him was “people not making it a big deal,” and “to have fun with it”.
The eight-part series also features Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Laura Haddock, Hannah Walters, seen recently in Adolescence, Cold Feet star Fay Ripley, Happy Valley‘s Oliver Huntingdon, as well as, Laquarn Lewis, Adam Ali, Hannah Jones and Alex Thomas-Smith.
Speaking exclusively to PinkNews ahead of the first episode, Thomas-Smith, who plays Sticky Nikki, described it as “Pose meets Skins“.
They also touched on the show’s timeliness, given the attacks on trans rights in the US and the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of a “woman” in the UK.
“If one person watches [who] has never met a trans person, and if they have a change of beliefs or open their minds, then we’ll have achieved something special,” Thomas-Smith said.
What It Feels Like For A Girl is streaming on BBC iPlayer. The first two episodes air from 9pm on BBC Three on Tuesday (3 June) and from 10.40pm on BBC One the same night.
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