And that's how the magic happens!
Jake Gyllenhaal is putting a spotlight on the not-so-sexy side of filming love scenes. On Tuesday, Oct. 5, the Guilty actor candidly shared the anticlimactic details about his sex scenes with Jennifer Aniston on the 2002 romantic drama The Good Girl.
During an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Howard Stern told Jake that it must have been "torture" for him to film intimate scenes with the Friends alum. The actor's response? "Oh, yeah," he facetiously replied. "It was torture. Yes, yes it was."
Jokes aside, the Nightcrawler star explained that filming some of those intimate moments isn't as steamy as it looks in the movies.
"Weirdly, love scenes are awkward because there are maybe 30, 50 people watching it," the A-lister shared. "That doesn't turn me on, so most of the time it's oddly mechanical. It's a dance—you're choreographed for a camera."
Jake did recall a moment when he had to use the pillow technique while filming a love scene with Jennifer. According to Insider, the prop is typically placed between actors who are stimulating sex or creating the illusion of intercourse.
"I do remember a pillow...the pillow technique was used," the A-lister shared. "That was just pre-emptive and generally always used when actually in a horizontal place in that movie. Everything else was whatever it was."
"The pillow saved you," Howard joked, adding, "Who taught you that?"
Jake quipped, "I think that was actually Jennifer's suggestion. I think she was actually very kind to suggest it before we began. She was like, 'I'm putting a pillow here.' That was all she said, I think I remember that."
This isn't the first time the Brokeback Mountain actor has discussed working with Jen on The Good Girl.
In fact, in 2016, he revealed that he had a crush on the actress.
"She's a rough one, you know, not likable. So hard to compliment," he told People at the time. "I will say, I had a crush on her for years. And working with her was not easy...I was–um, yeah. That's all I'm going to say. It was lovely. It wasn't hard, that's what I would say."
Of course, that's all history now.
Jake, who is dating model Jeanne Cadieu, told Howard that he's open to taking the next step in their relationship.
"That's all I want is to be a good husband and a father...That really is what I want," he explained. "And now that I have fulfilled a lot of things in my career that I feel comfortable with, I can safely say that. I don't know if I could have said that before."
He gushed, "I love her so much. She's such a good person."