Rosie Perez looked back at one of the first sex scenes she ever filmed in her career while guest hosting Today with Jenna Bush Hager.
The actress was hilariously candid on the morning talk show while discussing how she felt about filming intimate scenes and “senior sex.” After confessing that she doesn’t enjoy filming intimate scenes, Perez shared how nervous she was to film one of her first sex scenes with Woody Harrelson for the 1992 classic White Men Can’t Jump.
“I was so afraid to come out onto the set because I didn’t want him to see me naked,” she told Bush Hager. Though Harrelson tried to comfort her when she later came on set in a robe, Perez said he could not hold back his reaction to seeing her naked.
“He goes, ‘C’mon now everyone’s respectful,’” she recounted. “And then when I disrobed he goes, ‘Oh my God, look at your boobs!'”
In an oral history about the 1992 film, Perez said Harrelson gave her a pep talk through the bathroom door because she was too nervous to come out.
“I was like, ‘I’m going to feel weird because you’re going to see my body,'” she told Grantland. “He said, ‘I have the utmost respect for you and love working with you and there is nothing but respect for you from the whole cast and crew and we’re going to take it slow.’ I open the door and I’m standing there half-naked and he goes, ‘Oh my God, look at your tits. They’re beautiful.’ I slammed the door. I started cracking up. I go, ‘You’re such a pig, Woody.’ He goes, ‘I’m sorry, they’re huge and you’re so tiny.'”
The actress admitted that the moment “took the edge off because he was so goddamn silly and he made it fun.”
On Today, Bush Hager told Perez that women are often susceptible to “negative self-talk” when it comes to their bodies, prompting Perez to tell her, “Well, senior sex is good because you don’t care anymore.”
But Perez denied that she would ever film a “senior sex scene” for a project. “I hope not. I would offend the viewers!” she said. “No, I wouldn’t do it.”
“But I like to know what I have to look forward to,” Bush Hager responded.
Today with Jenna & Friends airs on weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.