Bridgerton is known for its steamy sex scenes, with Julia Quinn‘s imagination being brought to life in season two by Simone Ashley and Jonathan Bailey. The couple played Kate Sharma and Anthony Bridgerton and the steamy scenes, at least for Simone Ashley, came from an unlikely source. Snails!
While the thought of these slimy creatures may take the wind out of your, er, sails, do remember the French love eating them. And the French are known for their lover-making prowess. But let’s hear straight from the source, and how Simone Ashley now knows how snails mate…
Simone Ashley & Jonathan Bailey Choreographed Their Sex Scenes, Themselves
Instagram | BridgertonBridgerton is a period romantic drama series and has created quite the sensation the world over. Season two focused on the romance between Kate Sharma and Anthony Bridgerton who give in to their passion after seven episodes full of sexual tension and heat.
The show’s intimacy coordinator, Lizzy Talbot later revealed that Ashley and Bailey were able to give input on how they felt the scenes should proceed given that they had gotten to know the characters they were playing so well.
Said Talbot, in an interview, “They know their characters so inside out that they know exactly what their character would do at this moment, and they can bring so much to the scene because of that. It’s always a gift when you’ve got actors who really understand their characters.”
Of course, what makes an intimacy coordinator’s job even tougher, are the Regency costumes, with intricate buttons and fastenings which a normal person isn’t used to, in today’s zip and velcro times.
“A huge part of doing any intimacy scene in the Regency period is how to get the costumes off because they’re not easy. That’s always a real challenge because you’re now working with two characters who aren’t potentially used to undressing the opposite sex in that way.”
But Ashley and Bailey managed pretty fine, as they set their fans on fire with their passion.
For Simone Ashley, Snail Mating Was Important
Instagram | ooh_baby_snailsAshley and Bailey look effortless in their steamy scenes, and Ashley has to give credit to the snails for this, considering she had to learn about their mating habits during a sex intimacy workshop.
In an episode of the podcast, “The Envelope”, Ashley gives us a little insight into how she learned to portray different sexualities and credits a sex intimacy workshop where, “we completely broke the ice and you know, anything that was said, it was the most embarrassing or the most vulnerable, but it was a safe, intimate space.”
Said the 27-year-old, “We explored the movement of different animals to kind of portray different paces or different sexualities or how sensual something could be. For example, we look at how snails mate, and when snails mate, they actually produce a plasma that intertwines. So if it was a really sensual, slow kind of scene, we’d be like, oh, it’s like the snail. And it’s super slow like the plasma, like falling like honey.”
Sweet, like honey, indeed.
The Workshop Was For The Series “Sex Education”
Instagram | Simone AshleyAshley also praised “Sex Education” for having very good intimacy coordinators, especially since the actors were portraying 16-year-olds. Said the actress, “Weird things that happen in these spaces. Yeah. Awkward, embarrassing, but also very normal. And I think it just gave us all, like, the practice and experience of how to be professional on a set like that. And you learn that you know, as well as you’re making sure that you’re protected and feel safe. You’re doing the same for whoever you’re working with, and your co-star and you really have to trust one another. And I definitely found that within ‘Bridgerton.'”
Of course, it’s not always, slow, not in Bridgerton, and that’s where other animals steps in. Ashley contained to narrate, “So we would make it about that or how dogs mate or chimpanzees mate. It’s very fast-paced and has a different kind of style. So this kind of scene, we’re going to make it very funny and quirky and just like silly and like, let’s think of like, this animal. So we would kind of focus on the other things around and then treat it like dance and make it very character-driven.”
Good to know. But we may not be able to look at any Bridgerton scene anymore, without imagining some sort of animal! Sigh…
