Sam Heughan Hired ‘Outlander’ Intimacy Coordinator After Pushing Back on Full Frontal Nudity
“Outlander” star Sam Heughan felt out of control during a tense Season 1 scene that showed his penis.
Heughan revealed in his memoir “Waypoints: My Scottish Journey” (via Insider) that he felt betrayed by the Starz series’ creative team after an “unnecessary” shot of his member made it onscreen.
The scene in question involves Heughan’s character Jamie Fraser being sexually assaulted by his rival, Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies). Filmed in 2014, Heughan noted that the scene “would have been handled differently” today.
“This wasn’t a moment where I felt that being naked would add to the horror of what Jamie undergoes in that castle dungeon as a form of punishment, subjugation, and humiliation,” Heughan wrote, noting that while “Outlander” has “never turned away from sexual violence,” that particular sequence did not require nudity on his behalf.
“The cock shot was unnecessary and did betray my trust in the creative team a bit,” Heughan said. “We don’t need to see the horror to imagine what the characters go through. Imagination is way more powerful.”
Heughan continued, “I pushed back, reasoning that nudity sexualized a horrific experience for my character, and it sparked quite a debate. Creative conversations are a feature of all productions, good art is made by questioning the truth and we all want to get it right.”
The compromise for the scene was that Heughan would only be seen naked in the aftermath of the assault, and in post-production, the explicit images were left “on the cutting room floor.”
Now, “Outlander” has an intimacy coordinator, and Heughan reflected on the vast difference between the first and sixth seasons. During the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast earlier this year, Heughan confirmed that, as a producer on the series, he hired the show’s first intimacy coordinator.
“It’s important that everyone is protected, but also we find a way to explore these scenes and actually maybe get something more out of them,” Heughan said, previously noting that he was “just thrown in the deep end” when the series started.
In addition to opening up about “Outlander” nudity, Heughan detailed in his memoir the audition process to play James Bond before Daniel Craig was cast in “Casino Royale.”
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