“Nobody Has Sex Scenes Anymore”: Rob Lowe Says

Rob Lowe isn’t buying the idea that filming sex scenes is “brave.” Back in his prime, he says, they weren’t just expected  —they were practically a requirement.

During the February 27 episode of his podcast, Literally! With Rob Lowe, the 60-year-old actor got into a lively chat with Sex and the City star Kristin Davis about the evolution of steamy scenes in Hollywood. Lowe had brought up his 1988 thriller Masquerade, a movie that starred Kim Cattrall, Davis’ SATC co-star.

“I love that movie,” Rob declared, to which Kristin, also 60, eagerly agreed. The film, which also starred Meg Tilly, received positive reviews, but Lowe recalled how the studio hesitated to fully back it. …“but the studio kind of dumped it because they thought it was too sexy,” he explained.

Kristin found that idea almost laughable. “I know, can you imagine such a thing?” she said. But Lowe admitted that, in fairness, the film’s intimate scenes were “pretty gratuitous.”

Still, Kristin had no complaints. “But it was great. It was sexy. I wish we had sexy movies now,” she lamented. Rob agreed, adding, “Nobody has sex scenes in movies anymore.”

But is that entirely true? Kristin noted that a recent film, Babygirl (2024), fits the bill. She hasn’t watched it yet, but Rob has, and it made him reconsider his statement. “I take it back,” he admitted. “It’s pretty great. It’s pretty hot.”

Still, Kristin pointed out that a film like Babygirl is an exception rather than the norm. “We’re like, ‘Oh, thank God someone made a sexy movie,’ like, it’s an unusual thing now,” she said.

What really bugs Rob, though, is how modern audiences label actors as “brave” for taking on sex scenes. “Oh, when they’re like, ‘It’s so brave. She’s so brave.’ She’s ‘brave’ because she has a sex scene. Like, that’s brave now, and in our day, it was required,” he scoffed.

He even recalled an old Hollywood “rule” about these scenes — the so-called “page 73 rule.” According to Rob, “Back in the day, the sex scene was always on page 73. You didn’t have to read the whole script—you just went to page 73 because that middle second act.”

But now? “It’s so brave. It’s so brave,” he continued sarcastically. 

The conversation comes amid ongoing discussions about intimacy in film, especially after Babygirl stars Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson spoke about their own experience filming intimate scenes. At a Venice Film Festival press conference, Nicole, 57, shared that she never felt uncomfortable during filming.

“That’s what made it so compelling, was being in the hands of [director Halina Reijn], because I knew she wasn’t gonna exploit me,” she said, explaining that she felt safe and respected throughout the process. “I mean, however anyone interprets that, I didn’t feel exploited. I felt very much a part of it. It’s the story that I wanted to be a part of, that I wanted to tell. And every part of me was committed to that,” she added.

She also highlighted the care taken by the entire team. “We were all very, very gentle with each other and helped each other.”