Aubrey Plaza has opened up about an incident where, according to her, a movie director asked her to perform a sexual act for real as opposed to simulating it.
Movies can sometimes call for actors to portray intimate, private moments on screen and it is becoming more of a norm to have intimacy directors on set that'll ensure everything is handled appropriately and respectfully.
In 2013, Plaza - now 38 - was shooting a movie called The To Do List, where the Parks and Recreation actress played Brandy, who aced every subject in school except for sexual education, so she makes a list that'll give her more knowledge and experience.
An unearthed clip of Plaza talking about the movie with Conan O'Brien in 2013 has reemerged following her performance in The White Lotus, and she made some pretty shocking claims.
Alongside an intimacy director, performers are usually equipped with modesty barriers, prosthetics or the camera doesn't show what is actually happening and the sexual act is implied.
So when the 38-year-old arrived on set she was fairly shocked when the director of the movie, Maggie Carey, asked her to perform the act for real.
During the scene, Plaza was to lie on her back in bed and simulate the act of masturbating, though it seems that the actress and the director had different ideas as to how the scene would play out.
"In my head, I envisioned a nice scene where you see my hand slowly go out of frame," Plaza told Conan who made light of the experience.
See the interview with Conan below:Plaza continued: "That's what I thought I was going into, but then when I showed up, the camera was mounted on the ceiling, I was in my underwear and a Clinton T-Shirt, and there were a bunch of old men smoking, ya know, the crew guys."
She clarified that the men weren't actually smoking but in her memory of the bizarre day on set, that is how she remembers it.
The actress then rather candidly explained that with the camera mounted above her and a room full of men watching: "Then I went and touched myself."
She had reached out to Carey before the cameras started rolling to get clarification of what was expected of her from the scene.
"I asked the director, 'What should I do?' And she said, 'Masturbate, like it says in the script'," Plaza explained as the audience laughed at the retelling of the story.
Plaza spoke to Oregon Live in 2013 where she further explained: "Looking back on it, I feel like the masturbating scene was a little bit the most nerve-racking. Just because in my head I thought, oh, we'll probably shoot this in a way where I don't really have to really do it."
We're glad that Plaza can see the light side of things, as it sounds like it could have been a pretty shocking experience for others!
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