Aubrey Plaza has revealed the shocking sex act she was instructed to carry out 'for real' by a director while shooting a movie.
Portraying intimate, private moments on screen is often part and parcel of an actor's job - though some stars prefer not to agree to roles which involve sex scenes out of personal preference.
These days, it's also becoming more of a norm to have intimacy directors on set to ensure everything is handled appropriately and respectfully, and that all participants are comfortable with what's being asked of them and how it's being shot.
Back in 2013, Plaza - now 41 - was shooting a movie called The To Do List, where the Parks and Recreation actress played Brandy Klark, who aces 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 the White Lotus star talking about the movie with Conan O'Brien in 2013 reemerged recently, and in it she made some pretty shocking claims.
She alleged that when she arrived on set to shoot a scene of her character masturbating, the director, Maggie Carey, asked her to perform the act for real rather than just simulating it as you'd expect.
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.
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."
"But then when we did it and I was like, 'Oh no, we're going to shoot it where I do it'."