Henry Cavill has shared his dislike of sex scenes in film and television and questioned their necessity, arguing that it might sometimes be better to let viewers use their "human imagination."
During an interview on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast with his Argylle director Matthew Vaughn, Cavill admitted he is "not a fan" of filming intimate scenes and doesn't "understand" why they show up so often, even though he acknowledges there are some circumstances where they can add value to the storytelling.
"I don't understand them – I'm not a fan," Cavill asserted about sex scenes. "There are circumstances where a sex scene actually is beneficial to a movie, rather than just the audience, but I think sometimes they're overused these days.
"It's when you have a sense where you're going, 'Is this really necessary or is it just people with less clothing on?'" he continued. "And that's when you start to get more uncomfortable, and you're thinking, 'There's not a performance here. There's not a piece which is going to carry through to the rest of the movie.'"
Cavill reiterated that there are occasions where "sex scenes can be great," but sometimes they're relied on too heavily as a "bit of a cop-out" because "most of the time, the human imagination is going to trump it," so there should be more thought around "what is this doing for us apart from the idea of, 'Oh naked person, great.'"
While Cavill has acted his way through numerous raunchy moments in the past, including on Netflix's The Witcher (for the purpose of adding to the story rather than creating "shock value"), he didn't have to film any sex scenes for Vaughn's newest spy thriller, Argylle, which is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Cavill's forthcoming projects include the hotly anticipated Highlander reboot, which he is going to begin training for "in earnest," and the Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe, which started "properly rolling" last year and is now "progressing very well."
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X @AdeleAnkers.
