"I think sometimes they're overused these days": Henry Cavill speaks about his stance on intimate scenes

Henry Cavill is currently riding high after starring in Matthew Vaughn's Argylle, which was only released last week, and the upcoming release of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Cavill and Vaughn made an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where the actor claimed that he was "not a fan" of filming intimate scenes.

Cavill did agree that while these scenes can be necessary for storytelling, he still had a gripe. The actor said in the podcast:

"I think sometimes they’re overused these days. It’s when you have a sense where you’re going, 'Is this really necessary or is it just people with less clothing on?'"

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Henry Cavill and Matthew Vaughn talk intimate scenes

Matthew Vaughn's Argylle, starring Henry Cavill, hit theaters on Friday, February 2, opening to rather mixed reviews. On February 5, Vaughn and Cavill made an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where they talked about their new movie, among other things, including, the role of intimate scenes in movies.

Matthew Vaughn mentioned that he does not understand and can't wrap his head around intimate scenes. He thought they felt "bloody odd." Cavill agreed with his comments and said that he was "not a fan" of them either. He explained:

"There are circumstances where a s*x scene actually is beneficial to a movie, rather than just the audience, but I think sometimes they’re overused these days. It’s when you have a sense where you’re going, 'Is this really necessary or is it just people with less clothing on?'"

Henry Cavill added:

"That’s when you start to get more uncomfortable and you’re thinking, 'There’s not a performance here. There’s not a piece which is going to carry through to the rest of the movie.'"

Vaughn agreed and talked about teaching intimate scenes in drama schools and how he'd be furious if his daughters became actresses and went to drama school to learn to do an intimate scene. Cavill once again reiterated that such scenes can help with the storytelling of a movie; however, there was one catch. He said:

"Most of the time the human imagination is going to trump it."

Hence, he felt like depicting such intimate scenes in movies or TV shows was a "bit of a cop-out." He asked the question of what that particular scene was doing for the audience apart from the idea of simply seeing someone naked on screen.

As mentioned above, Henry Cavill and Matthew Vaughn's Argylle hit theaters last week. The movie opened to mostly underwhelming and mixed reviews, sitting at 6.1 on IMDb and amassing a rotten tomatoes score of 34% with an audience rating of 71%. Sarah Michelle Fetters of MovieFreak.com gave the movie a rating of 1.5 out of 4 and labeled the film "exhausting."

Robert Daniels of the Roger Ebert website gave the Henry Cavill starrer 1.5 stars out of 4 and said that the movie was "stumbling" and "overcooked." He wrote:

""Argylle” had the potential to be a whip-smart parody. It unfortunately just seems to get tired of being the butt of the joke before it can deliver the punchline."

Argylle is currently in theaters, and will later stream globally on Apple TV+.

Amidst all the buzz about Argylle, the teaser for Cavill's next project, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, dropped last week and has already crossed 12 million views on Lionsgate's official YouTube channel. Anticipation for the film, which is set to release in April, is sky-high, especially considering that the film is directed by none other than Guy Ritchie.