10 Real-Life Couples on What It's Really Like Sharing Sexy Time On-Screen

Chris and Elsa, Natalie and Charlie and more actor couples dish on the awkwardness and elation of filming sex scenes together

ELSA PATAKY & CHRIS HEMSWORTH

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The longtime spouses play a married couple in 12 Strong. "We had seven or eight years rehearsal time to play these characters," Hemsworth joked on Sunrise. "If we didn't have any chemistry we'd be in trouble." But filming intimate scenes wasn't entirely like bringing home to work. "That'd be the big difference — the cameras and the lights — that we weren't accustomed to. It's not the usual setting for us," the Marvel star added.

Hemsworth shared a set photo of one romantic scene on Instagram, writing, "Day 2 on the set of [12 Strong] and found myself in bed with @elsapatakyconfidential. Usually work means [she] gets a break from me, not today honey."

CHARLIE HEATON & NATALIA DYER

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The actors had shippers going wild as Nancy and Jonathan in season 1 of the Netflix hit Stranger Things. In season 2, their real-life romance finally carried over on-screen. "Charlie and I have worked together long enough. There was more tension from other people on set, if anything," Dyer told Newsweek about their characters' passionate scene. "There's a bunch of people sitting around a monitor watching you make out. Those scenes can be awkward, but for me it was fine.”

KERI RUSSELL & MATTHEW RHYS

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The Americans costars opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about whether or not sex scenes are less awkward with your real partner. "There's that immediate thing where, like, physically you're comfortable together, and so that's fine," Rhys said. Although there's more physical comfort, the actor did admit that it's a little weird to have his actual girlfriend so exposed in front of the crew. "I get a little protective. I'm like, 'Can someone get her a f------' robe, please?! She's standing there naked, we've cut for five seconds, Jesus Christ.' And they're like, 'Dude, this is the fourth season,' " he joked.

In the same interview, Russell shared that she appreciates the way sex is depicted on their spy drama. "But I will say I sort of love the use of it on our show because, at least in my experience being a woman, you usually have to do the most sexy, the most in love, the most romantic version," she said. "In our show, I'm in a place of power: It's to get information from that person or to make that person feel a certain way. And that can be empowering."

NINA DOBREV & IAN SOMERHALDER

Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder. Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

Somerhalder avoided getting too candid about filming The Vampire Diaries love scenes with his then-girlfriend, but he did admit the results were red-hot. "I'll just talk about the show. That sex scene had a lot of built-up passion, but also a more tender side," he told TV Guide about finally having "hot vampire sex." "The fans — and I — have been begging for that for a long time."

JULIUS TENNON & VIOLA DAVIS

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The How to Get Away with Murder star's husband is now joining her on the show, and it's making sex scenes a lot less precarious. "Well, it feels safe," she told Jimmy Kimmel about filming love scenes with her real-world hubby. "He had to take my panties off at one point, and then I had to keep resetting them — you know, because you have to keep doing the scene over and over again. But I forgot to reset them once. And so we got to the point, and he went to go pull them off. And [he went], 'V, you forgot to put your panties back on!' "

MELISSA MCCARTHY & BEN FALCONE

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Falcone played the air marshal who ends up sharing steamy, sandwich-involving foreplay with McCarthy's character at the end of Bridesmaids. The funny lady explained how the scene came about while appearing on The Project. "[It] was not supposed to be in the movie," she explained. "We did it on a lunch break … at the last minute [producer] Judd Apatow said like, 'Oh let's do something fun and put it on the internet maybe.' Then we shot it and he called and was like, 'Haha it's at the end of the movie' and we were like 'WHAT!?' "

ANNA PAQUIN & STEPHEN MOYER

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The actors shared a number of racy scenes during their True Blood days. "You are not supposed to say that you enjoy doing sex scenes, you are supposed to say 'Oh it's really difficult, you know with the lighting and the cameramen and the boom operators are all watching,' but I never had that. I just like doing them,'" Moyer confessed on Watch What Happens Live. The star went on to reveal what his favorite sex scene from the show was. "Can I be quite rude? The one where I went down on my wife and then bit her neck and put the blood in her own mouth and sucked it back out again," he said.

Paquin has also talked about being a fan of getting romantic with Moyer for the cameras. "Maybe it should be weird, simulating sex with your husband in front of people? But it's really not," she told V Magazine. "When it's a love scene with someone you actually love, there's no feeling like, 'Can I touch him here? Can I touch him there?' You know what your boundaries are — or what they aren’t, I suppose."

PENN BADGLEY & BLAKE LIVELY

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Badgley and Lively dated and subsequently broke up during the course of their show, Gossip Girl. The actor looked back on the experience on a 2015 episode of Watch What Happens Live, when he shared that Lively was both his best and worst on-screen kiss experience."I'll say Blake [was the best] because we actually had a relationship at the time," he said. "And worst? Maybe Blake after we broke up. We were consummately professional, to be honest. I think we should both pat ourselves on the back for getting through it. You know, anything is complicated in that way, but we handled it."

RYAN PHILLIPPE & REESE WITHERSPOON

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Years after filming a love scene with her now ex-husband for Cruel Intentions, Witherspoon revealed that looking back at it is only awkward for one group of people: their kids. "They have this Cruel Intentions play in L.A. that's like a musical. So I was going to take [my kids] to that. But they haven't seen it. They don't have any interest in seeing me in movies. It's weird for them," she explained on Watch What Happens Live. "They're like, 'This is so weird!' And especially seeing me and their dad having sex. It's so weird. Not interested."

ROBERT PATTINSON & KRISTEN STEWART

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Pattinson confessed to Parade that being in a relationship with his costar at the time actually made it more difficult to film intimate scenes for the Twilight franchise. "I think the more comfortable you are with each other, the harder it gets to do any kind of really intense relationship scene," he shared. "You're kind of thinking, 'I don't want to embarrass myself in front of this person,' 'I know what she's thinking now,' so it becomes ridiculous after awhile. Watching other people have sex is never going to be that spectacular anyway. It's a strange thing when there's so much hype about it. You are like, 'God, I hope this lives up to it.' "