Legendary British Actor Admits He Regrets Making Controversial Film With Real Unsimulated Oral Sex Scene

Sir Mark Rylance has spoken often about how his experience filming the 2001 movie Intimacy is not something he looks back on fondly. The film has followed him throughout his career, and he has been open about the uncomfortable memories tied to it.

The celebrated actor from Kent has publicly expressed regret about agreeing to take part in an unsimulated oral sex scene with his co-star Kerry Fox. Even though viewers expected intimate material given the film’s theme, most had no idea that the scene was real.

Due to the nature of the movie, people assumed the intimacy was staged, but learning Fox actually performed the act came as a surprise. The detail has remained one of the film’s most controversial talking points.

According to Rylance, the late director Patrice Chéreau played a key role in convincing both actors to go through with it. Rylance has said that he trusted the director at the time, but that trust ultimately left him carrying serious regret.

He later explained that he felt pressured into agreeing, which added to the emotional weight he carried after filming ended. He reflected on how the experience affected him personally and professionally.

In the film, Rylance played Jay, a lonely bartender who begins a weekly affair with a woman whose name he never learns. The story follows their encounters and the complicated emotions that grow between them.

Over the course of the film, Jay becomes emotionally attached to the mysterious woman played by Fox. Their scenes together make up much of the movie’s two-hour runtime and include several explicit moments that were designed to push boundaries.

Intimacy went on to win Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001, but its success was overshadowed by the backlash surrounding the unsimulated sex act. The controversy became one of the defining features of the movie.

What has Rylance said about the sex scene in Intimacy?

Looking back, the Wolf Hall star has made it clear that he “wishes he hadn’t” taken part in the graphic scene with Fox. His comments over the years show just how deeply it affected him.

“It soured me on my life two months,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2015. “It’s my mistake, but I felt [the director] Patrice put undue pressure on me on set to do that.”

“And at that point, I didn’t have the confidence as a film actor to say no.”

“Now, I think a lot of actors that people say are difficult are actually just being sensible.”

Rylance, who was 65 at the time of his later interviews, shared similar reflections with The Guardian the following year, further showing how much the experience stayed with him.

He described filming Intimacy as “the most difficult job” of his career. He said: “Hanif Kureishi’s work and Patrice Chéreau’s words convinced me it was a very true and vital story about the difficulties people face finding intimacy in a big city like London.”

“I know Hanif Kureishi’s writing couldn’t have been more intimate and revealing, but I found the making of the film and the subsequent publicity and personal attacks very, very painful. And I wish I hadn’t made it.”

What has Kerry Fox said about the sex scene in Intimacy?

While Rylance has expressed deep regrets about filming the unsimulated oral sex scene, Fox holds a very different view. She has often spoken about how she approached the role and how she processed the reaction to the film.

The New Zealand-born actress, now 59, has said the experience was actually useful for her in some ways, even with all the controversy that surrounded the movie. She explained that it even helped her grow professionally.

“As for Mark’s regrets about the film, I suppose that’s the point of taking these risks: you don’t really know how you’re going to respond,” she told The Telegraph.

“You can’t control how it will affect your career, but if you don’t take risks you’re destined for a life of boring work. Intimacy was a censorship landmark.”

“I remember Jane Campion, who had just made her film In the Cut with Meg Ryan, was really p***ed off with me that we were able to have such a frank oral sex scene.”

“She said: ‘We had to use a fake one. You got ahead of me there’.”

Fox went on to say that the experience had a lasting effect on her career, both positively and negatively. She noted that it shaped the types of roles she was able to pursue afterward.

“In terms of the film area I like working in and my ability to go to any festival I want in the world, it’s helpful,” she added. “But in TV and popular film here in Britain, I simply don’t know where I stand.”

“Because people don’t know what they’re going to get if they ask me to perform for them,” Fox said. She also explained that even though her career took “a big dip” right after the film’s release, she does not consider the role one of her regrets.

Fox’s former boyfriend, Alexander Linklater, once shared that he felt “jealous” about what she and Rylance had filmed. His reaction mirrored some of the discomfort Rylance later expressed about the project.