Elizabeth Hurley says ‘people have made a fuss’ over sex scene in son’s film

Damian Hurley directed his mother’s latest picture, ‘Strictly Confidential’

Elizabeth Hurley has addressed the reaction to her 22-year-old son directing her in an on-screen intimate scene, after the situation was branded “weird”.

The Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery star acts out a dramatic sex scene with another woman in her son Damien’s directorial debut, Strictly Confidential.

In the thriller, Georgia Lock plays a woman called Mia who returns to the Caribbean island of St Kitts on the anniversary of her friend Rebecca’s death. As she investigates Rebecca’s apparent suicide, Mia is pulled into a web of sex, lies, and murder.

Elizabeth, 58, who plays Rebecca’s mother, has faced backlash for agreeing to have her son direct her in intimate Strictly Confidential scenes.

Speaking to The One Show, the actor revealed she thinks reactions to the sex scene set up have been “demented”.

Elizabeth claimed she and her son “didn’t even think” about the sex scene before shooting because the film was “low budget” and they had to “shoot fast”.

“Damien had about six or seven scenes to film that day. This was just one of them,” she said.

Elizabeth Hurley and Damian Hurley (Getty Images for Lionsgate and Grindstone)

“People have made a fuss. It’s not like he sneaked into my bedroom with a camcorder,” the star added.

“It was on a set, there were like 100 people on set and everyone know [sex scenes] they’re not actually sex to shoot.

“Any kind of intimate scene, it’s just technical.”

Damian is Elizabeth’s son with the late film producer Steve Bing, who died by suicide in 2020.

Earlier this month, the model and director told the Sunday Times that directing his mother in the film’s sex scene felt “totally normal”.

“I was speaking to a lot of my friends who are also [the] second generation of parents in the industry,” he said.

“They say exactly the same thing: that things to outsiders that may seem totally strange and extraordinary, for us we’ll just have grown up with in everyday life.”

Elizabeth Hurley in scenes shot by her son, Damian, in new film ‘Strictly Confidential’ (Lionsgate)

He added that Elizabeth taught him about sex at a “ludicrously young” age, and was more like a sibling to him than a parent.

He also said the pair were so comfortable on set that they shunned the usage of an intimacy coordinator.

Strictly Confidential has received disappointing reviews since its US release last month.

According to Variety’s reviewer Dennis Harvey, the film “starts out looking like an erotic thriller-mystery, then descends into a series of flashback-laden explication monologues more apt for Dynasty than Agatha Christie”.

Ahead of its UK release on 13 May, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave Strictly Confidential one star and called the film a “softcore sex drama”.