Rivals duo Emily Atack and Victoria Smurfit open up on how filming sex scenes have changed

Having worked in the industry for the past three decades, Victoria Smurfit has had some rather, shall we say, baffling experiences on sets.

Currently starring as Maud O’Hara in Rivals on Disney+, she’s seen the change in the approach to filming intimate scenes first-hand.

And, reflecting on this, she spoke to LADbible about her first ever time filming a sex scene as she says it’s ‘much easier now’.

As well as playing the wife of Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) in the steamy comedy drama (which returns today, 11 November), Smurfit is also well-known for her time as the likes of Orla O’Connell in Ballykissangel and Cruella de Vil in Once Upon a Time.

A seasoned star, the 52-year-old praises the change as other Rivals cast members, including Emily Atack, say it ‘feels like we’re moving in the right direction’ when it comes to filming intimacy.

Smurfit's character is not only sleeping with her husband, but of course, there's the affair... (Disney+)

Victoria Smurfit recalls filming her first sex scene

Speaking alongside Atack and Turner, Smurfit says that filming intimate scenes is ‘so much easier now’ as the Declan actor agrees: “It is different to the way it used to be.”

And Smurfit highlights this pretty clearly as she tells LADbible about the ‘first time I ever had to a sex scene’.

“I was in my very early 20s and the director went, ‘well, so um w-w-what we're going to do is he's going to lie on top and um do the - then he's - then you're gonna [ejaculate] and that'll be it’,” she recalled. Yeah, super realistic mate.

“And I went ‘hang on a second, this is her first time, right?’ And he goes well ‘yes, she's losing her virginity’, I'm like ‘and she's gonna [finish]?’ And I remember thinking ‘that was the extent of the conversation’. So it's very, very different now.”

Rivals cast praise work of intimacy coordinators

For Atack, a big part of why the intimacy on Rivals is so comfortable is down to the fact the cast genuinely ‘get on so well’.

“We do the business and then we’ll go on our lunch break and go, ‘how was it? Was that ok?’ And we all support each other,” she explains.

“You know, it is weird doing that. But we have intimacy coordinators and also what I love is that they check in afterwards, which I think is really nice.”

As Smurfit compares intimacy on screen as doing a ‘stunt’, Turner explains what he thinks the biggest difference is in how these scenes are approached nowadays.

“You have somebody who is, their job is dedicated to these scenes and physically how do we tell a story and emotionally, they have a rhetoric and a vocabulary to use that maybe some directors in the past wouldn’t be so comfortable using or be aware to,” he says.

“You just tell the story in a different way, you have all these tools to do it and it’s not awkward.”

The steamy show is returning. (Disney+)

As they all agree it’s ‘different to the way it used to be’, Atack adds: “Totally different. And that feels good, it feels like we’re moving in the right direction, in that way.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by fellow Rivals star Danny Dyer who says earlier in his career having intimacy coordinators ‘just wasn’t a thing’ and you ‘just had to get on with it really’.

His on-screen wife, Lisa McGrillis, calls the the show's intimacy co-ordinator, Kat Hardman, ‘amazing’ and ‘brilliant’.

“If you know what the scene is and then you trust each other, you can just get on with it,” she adds, praising the help they get on-set.

Rivals Season Two returns with a three-episode premiere on Wednesday 11 November on Disney+ in the UK .