excerpts from "Lights! Camera! Action!"
By Judith Newman
Perfection. That's the only word to describe a love scene in a soap opera. The softly glowing lights, the gentle breezes, the sleek lingerie on those heavenly bodies...and the way his hand brushes her hair from her face! Those are the tender moments; there are violent scenes of passion, too. When a couple can't resist each other, clothing is ripped off, seemingly effortlessly. Why doesn't the guy ever get his head caught in the neck-hole of his shirt? Why doesn't the woman get her bra hook stuck in her hair? In other words (as many of us ask), why can't our sex lives be more like what we see onscreen?
Well, they can't. Not unless your home comes with a cadre of stylists and lighting designers. But there are certainly a few things you can learn from the people who are paid to make sex look really, really hot. "Let's face it - actors are sexual role models," says Lillian Glass, Ph.D., a New York counseling psychologist and voice coach who has worked with well-known actors, including Dustin Hoffman and Sean Connery. "On the one hand, the media gives us unrealistic expectations: We compare our bodies to actors' physical perfection, or we feel there's something wrong if we're not lost in ecstasy every time we make love. It's ridiculous. But then again, well-staged love scenes can teach us little nuances of romance that can add to our repertoires."
If you sometimes feel your own lovelife is more Lucy and Desi than Bogie and Bacall, stick around: You may learn a few things. But first, let me clear up a few misconceptions. I watched a love scene being filmed on the popular soap opera ANOTHER WORLD. All that perfection? It demands money, time, and a heck of a lot of body makeup.
On the day I visited the set, the scenes being filmed represented something of a landmark for the fictional denizens of Bay City, Illinios: After innumerable people and events conspired to keep Jake and Vicky apart, they were finally making love. See, Jake had once been with Vicky's identical twin sister, Marley, who wasn't really identical anymore, after the fire and the plastic surgery, and Marley wanted to keep the two apart. The fact that Jake had once raped Marley was apparently no longer a problem: Through the miracle of soap-opera redemption, Jake is no longer an evil rapist. Now he is a lovable rogue, who is truly smitten with Vicky. And the once-scheming, manipulative Vicky is now truly in love with Jake, but her mother is conspiring with Marley, and, well, I think you get the picture.
At any rate, Vicky, played by Jensen Buchanan, and Jake, played by Tom Eplin (who, in real life, used to be married to Ellen Wheeler, the actress playing Marley, but that's another soap opera), had to have sex. Tender, loving, passionate sex. Sex that would make every viewer swoon with desire.
"Wait. If I roll over like that, won't my fat stomach show?" Eplin wonders aloud.
"How's the shot of my back?" asks Buchanan. She nervously checks the TV monitor. She had put on pasties to cover her nipples, but peeled them off when she thought that shedding her aubergine gown wouldn't be necessary. Moments later, director Gary Donatelli tells her, sorry, they will need that faux-naked shot. Time out. "Re-pasty Jensen!" shouts the stage manager, to no one in particular.
"Okay, so we want, what? Gentle breeze? Gale-force winds?" asks one techie, adjusting the wind machine. For a moment he hikes up the speed, so that the set's long bedroom curtains are whipping wildly. "How about El Nino?"
There is some discussion about whether Jake will make love on top of Vicky, or vice versa. But the discussion is moot, because on a previous episode, when Jake was rescuing Marley from the fire, the real-life Eplin kicked in a fake door and broke his ankle. Therefore, he can't quite balance himself in the missionary position. As the cameras begin to roll, the prim, high-class Vicky looks winsomely at Jake and suddenly shouts, "Lay your nasty self down! Prepare to be mounted!" They both dissolve into giggles. Cut.
By the time the scene is completed, it is unquestionably erotic. When the cameras aren't rolling, the actors are grousing about the long day; the moment the camera light goes on, Jake is nibbling at the nape of Vicky's neck, as he slowly hooks a finger under the spaghetti strap of her peignoir and inches it down her shoulders. Vicky's skin is glowing, partly from the candlelight (every bedroom should have a candelabra!) and partly from the expertly placed klieg lights overhead. Even I wanted a cigarette by the time they were finished.
"You'd be amazed at the amount of effort that goes into choreographing love scenes," Donatelli tells me later. "There are so many variables. First, do the actors like each other? Tom and Jensen get along great, so we're lucky there. Second, do they feel comfortable? Everybody has his issues." Or, as Buchanan, a married mother of two, told me later, "It's one thing to share your insecurities about your body with your lover; it's another to have to share them with twenty-five crew guys."
Sure, it would be nice if we all had professional help to look our most alluring at night. But that's just the start. Staging a great sex scene is a matter of attitude, planning, and having a few of the right props.
Yes, we all love to climb into bed wearing that ratty T-shirt that's been washed so many times that the "Kiss Me, I'm Lithuanian" logo is almost invisible. "People on soaps rarely wear what normal people wear," says Buchanan, laughing. "At home, I'm into flannel."
Skimpy is fine, but notice that soaps tend to opt for sweeping silk robes and lingerie. For men, ANOTHER WORLD's costume director, Shawn Dudley, favors silk pajama bottoms (Tops? Who needs tops?), or if the actor's body is really hot, biker-shorts underwear.
Having these sexy items helps, but Dudley insists that the really important thing is showing them how to take them off. "Being aware of the moment - that's step one," he says. "I show women how to walk in flowing gowns, preferably while wearing strappy high heels; how to slip off robes slowly. Women know this stuff is sexy. Many just feel uncomfortable doing it. I say go for it."