Florence Pugh Revealed That A Camera Broke During An “Oppenheimer” Sex Scene With Cillian Murphy After He Said Filming Them Is “The Most Awkward” Experience
“Our camera broke when we were both naked, and it was not ideal timing,” she said.
In case you haven't seen the film yet, Florence plays psychiatrist and physician Jean Tatlock, who has a sexual relationship and subsequent affair with J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian.
Florence has a few nude scenes throughout the movie, but it was during one particularly intimate moment that disaster struck.
During an Oppenheimer panel moderated by Jamie Dornan, Florence — alongside costars Cillian and Emily Blunt — recalled that the camera broke “in the middle of our sex scene.”
“Our camera broke when we were both naked, and it was not ideal timing,” she told the audience, per Variety.
Florence explained that there was already a limited number of cameras they could use to shoot with, so the crew had no choice but to try to resolve the issue there and then.
“Cillian and I are in this room together. It’s a closed set, so we’re both holding our bodies like this,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself as she recalled the chaos.
Despite the obvious awkwardness, Florence said she made the most of the opportunity to get involved and learn a thing or two about how the cameras work.
“I’m like, well, this is my moment to learn. ‘So tell me, what’s wrong with this camera?’” she remembered saying to the person who came into the room to try to fix the issue. “You just make your moments. I’m like, ‘What’s going on with the shutter here, buddy?’”
Ultimately, director Christopher Nolan deduced that there was a problem with the way the light was coming in onto the set, and they were soon able to get back to shooting.
Recalling the whole debacle, Florence took a moment to praise all the people who worked on the Oscar-nominated film and say what a phenomenal moviemaking experience it was.
“It was just crazy that every person on this set was so knowledgeable and was so ready to make this kind of a movie that there was no dull moment,” she said during the panel. “It was all amazing. It felt like we were lucky to be there every second of the day.”
Since Oppenheimer was released last year, the film’s R-rated scenes have been a divisive topic of conversation, with some viewers feeling that they were “unnecessary” — particularly in light of the fact that Florence’s character doesn’t have a ton of screentime elsewhere in the movie.
However, numerous people involved with the film have spoken out to defend the scenes, including Cillian himself, who said he thought they were “vital” to the story.
“I think the relationship that he has with Jean Tatlock is one of the most crucial emotional parts of the film,” he told GQ soon after the film’s release. “I think if they're key to the story, then they’re worthwhile.”
Of filming the scenes, he confessed, “Listen, no one likes doing them — they're the most awkward possible part of our job. But sometimes you have to get on with it.”
Similarly, Christopher has defended the scenes and said he felt “appropriately nervous” to shoot them, especially since it was his first time directing sex scenes.
“It felt very important to understand their relationship and to really see inside it and understand what made it tick without being coy or allusive about it, but to try to be intimate, to try and be in there with him and fully understand the relationship that was so important to him,” he told Business Insider in July.
“Anytime you're challenging yourself to work in areas you haven't worked in before, you should be appropriately nervous and appropriately careful and planned and prepared,” he added.
