What It's Like to Film a Sex Scene When You're Pregnant

When asked by THR what “the most physically demanding thing” they had to do onscreen was, Danes, Farmiga and Russell all agreed that being pregnant while filming is rough:

DANES: I was pregnant for the second season of Homeland, and as my baby progressed, the show got more action-packed. At one point, we were shooting in an old sewage factory. I was kidnapped, I was chained to a pipe, it was 4 a.m., I was 7½ months pregnant, and I was like, “This sucks.” They were like, “Sorry!” At one point, the baby was on my sciatic nerve, and I was charging down the halls of pretend Langley. I also had to do love scenes pregnant.

RUSSELL: Yeah. It’s creepy when your belly’s up against them. You’re like, “This is wrong.”

DANES: At the very end, I was a month and a half shy of popping, and I was doing a romantic scene.

RUSSELL: Oh my God.

DANES: And Cyrus was really active. It was late at night, it was after dinner, and [my son] was going crazy in my belly. It was like he was protesting on my husband’s behalf or something. That was hard.

Farmiga’s addition to the conversation gets really, really good:

FARMIGA: And post-pregnancy, too. At one point in Up in the Air, I’m lactating on George Clooney’s chest during an intimate scene, and he grins and bears it!

MARGULIES: He probably got his glass of vodka and … (pantomimes holding a glass up to Farmiga’s chest). (Laughter.)

DANES: White Russian?

Image via Showtime