Rob Lowe discussed Hollywood’s changing attitude toward sex scenes during a conversation with Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis on his Literally! podcast. He recalled an unwritten industry practice known as the “page 73 rule,” which once signaled the expected placement of a sex scene in a script.
“Back in the day, the sex scene was always on page 73,” Lowe said. “You got a script and were like, ‘Am I going to be naked in this?’ And you didn’t have to read the whole script. You just went to page 73 because that middle second act… what do you do? It’s the toughest sledding in storytelling, so they Blue Lagoon it.”
Lowe pointed to how his 1988 thriller Masquerade was dismissed by its studio for being “too sexy” and compared that reaction to the way intimacy in film is now framed. He referenced the response to A24’s Babygirl, which includes multiple sex scenes and has been described as bold and daring.
“They’re like, ‘It’s so brave. She’s so brave,’” Lowe said about the way intimate scenes are viewed today. “She’s brave because she has a sex scene? Like, that’s brave now. In our day, it was required.”
Babygirl, directed by Halina Reijn, follows a CEO played by Nicole Kidman as she enters into a relationship with a younger intern, played by Harris Dickinson. The film used an intimacy coordinator to help stage the scenes, a method Reijn credited for creating sequences that appeared intense while keeping the actors comfortable.
Lowe spoke about Hollywood’s evolving approach, emphasizing the need to adapt to industry shifts rather than resist them. “I always feel, like, out of chaos comes opportunity,” he said. “If you can be one of the nimble ones and one of the forward-thinking ones … not entrenched and not trying to recreate yesterday but try to imagine tomorrow, it’s your time.”