Once Alison Brie and Dave Franco step foot on set, it’s strictly business.
The actress opened up about what it’s like having her husband direct her sex scenes with Jay Ellis in her new movie, “Somebody I Used to Know.”
While for many couples the prospect of seeing your partner get intimate with another person might be their idea of living hell, for Brie and Franco, it’s just another day at the office.
“I realize that it sounds wild, but we are actors, this is our job,” she told Jezebel. “It’s actually not that weird. And with something like this, because it’s our baby that we made together, I think our first priority is always just the movie.”
“Does the scene feel right and good? We don’t want my romantic scenes with [costar Jay Ellis] to play awkwardly or strangely in any way.”
The “Mad Men” star, 40, said she and her husband have “worked together enough now” to feel comfortable enough to go through steamy sex scenes in front of each other.
“The second movie that we did together ever, as actors, was Jeff Baena’s ‘The Little Hours,’ and in that movie, Dave has make-out or sex scenes with three other actors and me,” Brie explained. “So, I just feel like that was the ripping of the band-aid.”
In addition to 2017’s “The Little Hours,” the couple has also starred together in “The Disaster Artist,” “The Rental,” and most recently, “Horse Girl.”
The pair got engaged in August 2015 after Franco popped the all-important question with a rose-cut diamond sparkler by Irene Neuwirth. They secretly tied the knot in 2017.
Earlier this month, Brie opened up about the process she and Franco go through to get the best possible take in a scene.
Explaining the “hands-on” approach, Brie told The Hollywood Reporter that “Dave’s at the computer while I pace the room, bouncing off the walls and trying to make dinner.”
“Then I ask her what she would say in this scenario and she starts improvising and acting it out,” Franco, 37, chimed in, adding, “I write down every word that comes out of her mouth and we just kind of go back and forth in that way.”
The “How To Be Single” actress previously told People that she and Franco “usually do have some kind of conversation” before taking on a project that requires a sex scene “just to give the other person a heads-up.”
“You don’t want to blindside anyone, I think, with that information,” she told the outlet. “But at the same time, it’s a part of our job. It’s a strange part, and I can see how to the outside eye [it might come off].”
“We’re all professionals and when we’re in character, it’s its own thing,” she explained, adding, “It’s like we work in this strange job that just requires ultimate vulnerability at a moment’s notice. It’s just what we signed up for.”