Florence Pugh reveals a camera broke during her sex scene with Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer

Last Updated on January 30, 2024

Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer is making headlines for a lot of things. One of the talked-about aspects of the film is a sex scene between two of the film’s stars, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh. While just a small part of the three-hour epic, there have been international edits of the film that have censored the nudity, while others have complained of its gratuitousness. Pugh, whose filmography has already included a number of risqué scenes, was very supportive about the feeling of professionalism on Christopher Nolan’s set. This is especially given the fact that filming for such scenes can be immensely uncomfortable, and a new practice of intimacy coordination has been instituted in the making of movies.

However, Pugh would relay a humorous situation that ended up making the filming of the scene more troublesome when she revealed that a camera had broken during the scene. According to Variety, Pugh told the anecdote at a panel for Oppenheimer with Murphy and Blunt in attendance. Pugh stated, “In the middle of our sex scene, the camera broke. No one knows this, but it did. Our camera broke when we were both naked, and it was not ideal timing.” Furthermore, she added that not many cameras were available with one being in the shop (perhaps it was an IMAX camera?), so they had to figure out how to fix it.

Pugh continued, “Cillian and I are in this room together. It’s a closed set, so we’re both holding our bodies like this. (wrapping her arms around her).” A person would then attempt to fix the camera. “I’m like, well, this is my moment to learn. ‘So tell me, what’s wrong with this camera?’” she said as the person examined the problem. “You just make your moments. I’m like, ‘What’s going on with the shutter here, buddy?’”

Nolan had told her that there was an issue with the way the camera was receiving light, to which she continued, “It was just crazy that every person on this set was so knowledgeable and was so ready to make this kind of a movie that there was no dull moment. It was all amazing. It felt like we were lucky to be there every second of the day.”