Channel 4 looks set to shock viewers with fully nude sex scenes in new costume drama The Great starring Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning.
The new US-made TV show is a satirical reimagining of the lives of Catherine the Great and her husband Emperor Peter III of Russia.
The series – which aired in the USA in May on Hulu – is filled with sizzling sex scenes that are to compete with the X-Rated content found on Netflix ’s Bridgeton and the BBC’s Black Narcissus.
Starting on UK TV on Sunday night – with the post-watershed time of 9pm – the series see’s 31-year-old Nicholas and 22-year-old Elle acting their way through steaming scenes.
While their characters are portrayed as sex mad – with Empress Catherine II seen embarking on an affair with a character named Leo Voronsky.
Earlier this year, Elle described how the team behind the show tried to make the sex scenes as realistic as possible.
She told Entertainment Weekly: “We had an intimacy coordinator that was on set whenever we had those scenes, to make everyone feel good and make everything look real.
"She [Catherine] was very open and free and loved sex, so that's obviously something that I wanted to touch upon.
“You see the young Catherine on her first wedding night and it's not exactly how she was expecting it to go.
"And she ultimately gets a lover in Leo, they have the sex that they have, which is more loving and passionate.
“The sex with Nick and the sex with Sebastian [de Souza] in the show is very different."
The star also explained that she and Nicholas tried to make each other laugh during their intimate scenes.
She laughed: "I think we both like to challenge ourselves, Nick and I, and we're trying to push each other's buttons and he's trying to make me laugh and trying to go there.
"So I think it really helps those scenes. But especially the scene where [they have to] count his thrusts to 100, that scene, we were dying.
"There's a real wide shot where we had to kind of go through the motions because we're way in the background and the other characters are talking. And it was hard.
“We were just crying with laughter. So yeah, those days were actually quite enjoyable. They were funny."
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