'Normal People' Cast, Director Discuss Intimate Scenes: There Was 'Initial Awkwardness Of Nakedness'

“Normal People” creators and cast opened up about Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones' intimate scenes in the BBC and Hulu show and how much thought went into filming them.

During the show's panel discussion at the Edinburgh TV Festival, “Normal People” director Lenny Abrahamson shared that they understand just how important the intimacy and attraction of the lead characters are in Sally Rooney’s book, thus they knew they had to ace it on the show, Variety reported. This is why the filmmaker felt they needed to plan out carefully how the bed scenes would be done.

“I think one of the principles that we all shared among the creative bunch of people that made the show was to try to not distinguish the intimacy scenes from the rest of the drama, and not to go into ‘sex scene’ mode,” the director explained.

“Make sure what we were doing in those scenes deepened the understanding of the characters and what was occurring between them,” Abrahamson continued.

As for Mescal and Edgar-Jones, the director explained that the actors have been involved since day one to make them feel comfortable. Since “Normal People” revolved around intimacy and had a lot of sex scenes, the team has an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who fostered an atmosphere where everyone can be honest.

According to the director, Mescal, Edgar-Jones and other “Normal People” cast members can speak up if they feel uncomfortable about a scene. Abrahamson explained that there was an “initial awkwardness of the nakedness,” but later, “it became creatively satisfying.”

"A lot of that awkwardness that would normally attend the entire process of shooting scenes like that in a conventional approach, a lot of that just went away,” Abrahamson added.

For Mescal, who plays Connell Waldron, the thought of shooting intimate scenes was far more anxiety-inducing than the actual filming process.

“There’s an awkward 10 minutes when you’re like, okay, I have to be relatively naked in front of a group of strangers… from an actor’s perspective you’ve got to treat that the same way you would a scene where you’re speaking to each other,” Mescal shared.

Edgar-Jones, meanwhile, said that she was “proud” that there was “equality” in nudity between her and her onscreen partner on “Normal People.” She also underlined why it is crucial to show intimacy when telling the truth about a relationship.

“Having a sense of why certain scenes are happening and what is being communicated meant that we could just approach them like we would approach any dialogue scene,” Edgar-Jones, who plays Marianne Sheridan, said.