Stars Of Netflix’s Obsession Suffered Brutal Injuries Filming Sex Scenes
The stars of Netflix's Obsession ended up with bruises all over their bodies from filming sex scenes.
The leads of the new Netflix thriller Obsession were left bruised and battered after filming sex scenes for the movie, according to Newsweek. The new streaming series is based on the 1992 movie Damage and stars Richard Armitage and Charlie Murphy as soon-to-be father-and-daughter-in-law who start a hot and steamy love affair.
Obsession is currently the hottest thing on Netflix. It’s a limited series that follows William Farrow (Armitage), who develops a dangerous fixation on his son’s fiance, Anna Barton (Murphy), which develops into a secret love affair behind the backs of Farrow’s wife (Indira Varma) and Murphy’s fiance (Rish Shah). As the core storyline focuses on the steamy relationship between the four characters, the show features quite a few spicy scenes, some of which, apparently, were dangerous to film.
Armitage and Murphy sat down with Newsweek to discuss filming the Netflix series and spilled all the details on how they ended up with bruises all over their bodies after filming Obsession’s steamy scenes.
“It’s very technical,” Armitage said, describing how while Netflix’s Obsession scenes might look spontaneous on screen, they’re diligently choreographed and are shot with dozens of people from the crew standing around and watching the intimate moments and mentioning how many moments are repeated several times until they get the shot.
Murphy added that many of the positions are very difficult to hold for the shot, which is how she and Armitage often ended up with bruises. “You’re like, ‘I don’t know if my thigh can hold my bodyweight here,” Murphy said, recalling how she’d try to stretch her body in ways she wasn’t used to for the shot. “I was aching by the end of the day,” Armitage added.
The two Obsession stars recalled how they’d end up with bruises in strange places like their knees, elbows, and foreheads while filming for the Netflix series.
When the Newsweek interviewer asked if Armitage and Murphy related to Martin Freeman and Joanna Page in Love Actually, Armitage said, “Completely.” There’s a scene in the classic Hugh Grant romantic comedy where Freeman and Page’s characters are filming a sex scene for a movie inside the movie while having completely normal everyday conversations—there’s nothing steamy about the intimate scenes whatsoever. Murphy said that while filming spicy scenes with Armitage, they’d have conversations about interior design, food, and recent vacations.
To film Obsession for Netflix, the production company hired intimacy coordinators to make sure all actors felt safe and secure during the sex scenes, which has become a more common practice since the #MeToo movement began in 2016. It was the first time Armitage had worked with an intimacy coordinator, despite having done spicy scenes in films before and he said that having a coordinator on set made the experience more freeing for him as an actor. Murphy seemed to agree with Armitage’s sentiments and also said that the film industry was missing something essential before coordinators became common practice.
Even so, having a coordinator on set didn’t seem to stop the two Netflix stars from getting beat up, and they’ll forever have the memories of their many bruises to remind them of their time filming Obsession.
