‘SMILF’ Star Rosie O’Donnell On Her Sex Scene On The Showtime Series

Rosie O’Donnell opened up about the sex scene she filmed for Season 1, episode 6 of the Showtime series “SMILF.”

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, O’Donnell, who plays Tutu on the Frankie Shaw-created series, said that the sex scene was actually less difficult to shoot than the pre-sex scene, in which her character prepares for her date.

“Not as uncomfortable as the day before, when I had the ‘getting ready for the sex scene,’” O’Donnell said when asked how uncomfortable it was for her to film the sex scene. “The next day, the actor playing my boyfriend was so terrified and shaky — and I’m so codependent that I wasn’t afraid because I was taking care of him. I was nurturing him. It wasn’t as bad or as scary as I thought.”

O’Donnell told The Cut last December that she was able to do the sex scene because it was directed by Shaw. “I did have two sex scenes in my career, which were both mostly played for comedy. But this one was not,” the Emmy winner said. “And Frankie kept saying to me, ‘Ro, we’ve gotta get your waiver, your agents want you to write what you will and won’t do.’ And I go: ‘I’m not going to write that. I’m going to come in here and I’m going to do something real with you, and I’m going to talk with you about what I want to do, and the parts of my body that show I’m okay with in the moment of the doing it. Let’s just see what works. And I’m trusting that you’ll know.”

In the same interview, O’Donnell gave a deeper explanation as to why the pre-sex scene was actually harder to shoot than the sex scene itself. “That scene was … more vulnerable to me,” O’Donnell said of the pre-sex scene, “when I was in my underwear and pulling hairs out of my nipple and kind of dancing and trying to feel sexy and desirable and all of those challenging feelings that women my age have.”

“In the sex scene, the actor who was playing Edmund was more nervous than anyone I had ever seen,” O’Donnell continued. “So, of course being a woman, all of my emotions about doing a sex scene were cut off because I could co-dependently care for someone else. That’s such a female thing to do.”

During a “SMILF” For Your Consideration Emmys event earlier this month, O’Donnell revealed that a lot of people assumed that the sex scene was the hardest scene she filmed for the freshman run of the series.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Was the sex scene hardest?’ I’m like, no,” O’Donnell told International Business Times, revealing that her most difficult scene in Season 1 didn’t actually make it into the final cut.

The former “The View” co-host revealed that her hardest Season 1 scene was in the finale, where she had to listen to her young daughter Bridgette (Shaw) tell everyone about her abusive experience. Though viewers briefly saw Tutu question if Bridgette needed to be calling everyone she knows, it appeared that there was more to the scene originally.

“It was actually very difficult. That was the hardest scene to shoot,” O’Donnell said. “I didn’t end up in the scene on TV, but while we shot it, I was on the phone with them when she was telling everyone about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, and it was very difficult that whole day.”

“SMILF” Season 2 is expected to premiere later this year on Showtime.