Gemma Arterton says director put her 'under pressure' to film unscripted sex scene

Gemma Arterton has said a director put her 'under pressure' to film an unscripted sex scene.

The 38-year-old, of course, hit our screens with her iconic film debut as head girl Kelly in St Trinian’s back in 2007, before playing the Bond Girl, Strawberry Fields, in Quantum of Solace the next year.

Since that initial movie role, Arterton has gone on to star in an impressive list of shows and flicks from The King’s Man and Summerland to Murder Mystery and Clash of the Titans.

But with such credits to her name so far, it hasn’t all been glitz and glam as she recalled the difficulty with an unnamed director.

She didn't say who the director was. (Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/WireImage)

The Funny Women star was asked if she has ever been worried about being perceived as ‘difficult’, which prompted her to explain how they had said to her: “You’re going to shag on the bed.”

Arterton recalled to Radio Times: “And I said, ‘No, this scene was written for us to be off screen, so you just hear the noises. I'd never have accepted the role if it was going to be filmed.’

“He put pressure on us on the day. The other actor, God bless him, was mortified.”

The star explained how there were ‘very high-profile people’ around but she stood her ground. “I said, ‘You can't do that, I'm flat out not doing it. I don't care if you think I'm difficult.’ But I only felt like I could say that because I was older,” Arterton said.

Although, the Rogue Agent star did say that if this had happened when she was younger it ‘would have been really hard’.

“You might get the sack, or get a terrible reputation,” she added.

She first hit our screens in St Trinian's. (Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage)

The actor explained how this was all before intimacy coordinators came into place, making it ‘a totally different landscape’.

“Anything you're not comfortable with is not going to happen,” Arterton continued. “I've heard other actors that are like, ‘I loved it when there was no intimacy coordinator,’ but I definitely think it's better.”

Intimacy coordinators are very much now a core part of a film set, following the MeToo movement back in 2017.

Arterton is about to be back on the big screen as The Critic premieres in UK cinemas tomorrow (13 September).

Alongside Ian McKellen, it’s a period thriller set in 1934 when ‘an actress finds herself in a dark situation involving a gay theatre critic and his paper's editor’. Juicy.