—Robert, Berkeley, California
The B!tch Replies: Filmmakers love to wax on about how professional those love scenes are—how clinical and choreographed and harmless and utterly unsexy. Let's get such a quote out of the way early.
"I haven't seen any jealousy," insists Michel Shane, a producer for Leo DiCaprio's Catch Me If You Can as well as an upcoming biopic about legendary basketballer Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton.
"It's acting. There are 150 people watching you…It's a job."
Very well. But in this town, any spouse who doesn't get at least a little insecure in that situation is either (a) already sneaking around or (b) a corpse.
Too many Hollywood romances come as a direct result of onscreen mash-upping, and actors know it. (Didn't you watch VH1's recent breakdown of the hottest on-set hookups, like, ever? Or maybe it was the most sizzling on-set romances. The last four hours have mercifully wiped those memories from my brain.)
Dramatic consequences from love scenes? Here you go. Bennifers I and II. Julia Roberts and Danny Moder. Courteney Cox and David Arquette. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. Angelina Jolie and Jenny Shimizu. And Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller. Oh, and Angelina Jolie and Timothy Hutton. Also, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton. And of course, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. All of them met through work, and most of them swapped tongues quite a bit in their pursuit of a paycheck."Pretty much every set I have worked on, an actor is having a fling," independent director Drake Doremus tells this B!tch.
So, to answer your question, yes. There is jealousy.
Peter Sellers was infamously green-eyed of even the lightest love scenes filmed by his young wife Britt Ekland—so much so that he pulled her from a project and spurred a studio lawsuit in the process. Ewan McGregor's wife, Eve, once admitted to a flare of jealousy during the filming of Trainspotting.
"I was pregnant…and [Ewan's costar] Kelly Macdonald, who is delightful, was a beautiful fresh flower, " Eve told a French reporter. "Maybe it was my hormones, but it took me until after the birth not to tremble when I saw Kelly."
Still, such admittances are rare. Instead, most spouses insist they harbor no insecurities.
"[My wife] Jada's done love scenes," Will Smith once said. "She understands that it is not what it looks like. She knows the director's behind you, saying, 'Put your leg over her thigh,' there are 50 people sitting around and a grip eating a hot dog."