In her new movie Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays a magazine writer who’s no stranger to a messy one-night stand. Still, even the commitment-averse Amy is thrown for a loop late into the film, when she has one aborted sex romp that’s so out-there and incredibly misjudged that it convinces her to finally get her personal life in order. How did that bonkers sex scene come together? We asked Schumer, but first, here’s a little bit of SPOILER-y scene-setting.
The encounter in question comes after Schumer’s character has broken things off with Aaron (Bill Hader), the sweet sports doctor she was dating. At a personal low point, loaded with alcohol and possessed with a fuck-it attitude, Amy decides to go home with her magazine’s weird intern Donald (Ezra Miller), though she’s unprepared for just how kinky and wiggly he turns out to be: Donald climbs all over Amy in bed, orders her to manhandle his pierced “tits,†gets in a few surprise slaps, and treats every kiss like he’s a fourth-grader making out with his own reflection. And then, just as Amy is looking frantically for an exit, the real bomb gets dropped. Donald’s mom bursts in on the two of them hooking up and shrieks, “He’s 16!â€
When I asked Schumer about the queasy-crazy sex scene a few weeks ago, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve never seen two people have less chemistry,†she said. “I love that, though! The horrible dissonance that it causes just when you see the two of us going in to kiss, you’re just like, ‘Nooooo!’â€
How did she and director Judd Apatow get Miller in the mood? “We actually had a rehearsal before, because he was like, ‘I don’t really understand where this guy’s coming from,’†Schumer explained. “And I said, ‘This guy would want to be on top. Like, he would want to ride me.’ And Ezra was like, ‘I’ve got it.’†From that moment on, the two of them were off to the races: “We were rehearsing and he was slapping me, just being the girl, kind of. Being a sexy kind of hip-hop wife. It was just perfect.â€
Miller credits his time in the makeup truck for getting him even more into character. “I’d say getting my nipples faux-pierced was inspiration enough,†Miller told me. “And we had to shave my chest! Oh, I was getting titillated all day long. And then you’ve just got sexy people around like Judd Apatow, strutting his stuff, and I’m getting hot and bothered. And he’s saying things like, ‘Hold it, hold it, and now … release.’ That’s pretty much how it went down all day.â€
If you wanted even more awkward moments between Schumer and Miller, just wait for the Blu-ray: ‘We had a whole other part that we shot with these sex toys,†Schumer recalled, “and we didn’t even need it.†That raises the question, then: Though Schumer (who also wrote Trainwreck) seems to have an enviable embarrassment threshold, does she ever find herself scripting moments that are so outrageous that she has second thoughts once she’s on set performing them? “It’s the opposite, actually,†she said. “The writer in me is like, ‘Do I really want to write myself popping out of a cake? Then I’ll have to be crouched in a cake all day.’ And then when I’m there on set I’m like, ‘More cake! And wouldn’t it be funny if I dumped it all over my face?’ In the moment, I’m such a clown ready to get the biggest reaction possible.â€