Arousing her interest
When Sally Phillips says she acted like a slug on How to Please a Woman, it’s not self-criticism. It’s how she pulled off the Australian film’s funniest sort-of-sex scene. It involves Phillips’ character, a remote-control device placed somewhere intimate, and Erik Thomson on an exercise bike with a pastry.
A writhing Phillips gives Meg Ryan’s When Harry Met Sally faux orgasm a run for its money. For that, the English comic actress can thank the film’s intimacy co-ordinator and the inspiration of a gastropod mollusc.
“We had a proper, superdeluxe sex coach who told us via Zoom from her London office. “She suggested that Erik be a bonobo and I had to be a slug, and that was genius because it meant Erik knew I was being a slug. I knew I was being a slug.