'Why do we find sex so difficult to talk about,' asks Emma Thompson while talking about her latest acting role.
A 62-year-old retired religious education teacher , who has never had an orgasm, hires a 28-year-old male sex worker to help expand her horizons. This is the story of the film, which was written by Katy Brand and sent to me with an “Is this anything that might intrigue you?” kind of message.
Preparing for shooting was simplified by the COVID restrictions in place at the time—for a start, I couldn’t go off to a health spa and lose 20 pounds in anticipation of forthcoming nudity. I decided that my character Nancy wouldn’t have done that either, and so it was doubtless for the best. I had no trouble imagining what it was like to be a teacher because I know several and might well have become one had my parents’ profession been less welcoming.
Our director, Sophie Hyde, guided us into naked rehearsal by joining us naked. We three stood about, entirely bare, and talked about our bodies and what we liked and didn’t like about them. I had a much longer list of dislikes than either of them. But in the end, it just reminded me of how leveling and also elevating being nude with people can be. It’s easier to be honest when there’s literally nothing to hide, and it’s unavoidably humbling. And after that, there’s nothing much to fear.
In my line of work, we are often required to portray sex—but I was very diffident about my looks and my body as a young actress, and certainly had none of the attributes that appealed to overwhelmingly male producers who tended to cast women they “wanted to f**k.” So, I didn’t do it all that often. Sexual assistance—why isn’t it on the National Health Service? Sex is free, natural, normal, delightful, good for us, and, as Leo says in the film, inaccessible to some for all kinds of perfectly valid reasons. It’s a public health issue.
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