Meg: Sex secenes were 'hilarious'

Meg Ryan torpedoes her image as a perky, squeaky-clean all-American girl by indulging in some steamy nude and sex scenes with Mark Ruffalo in their new film In The Cut.

Directed by Jane Campion, the film stars Ryan as a mousy English professor whose lonely life becomes filled with sexual excitement and danger when she becomes involved with a police officer investigating murders on her street.

She told journalists at a Toronto press conference that she had no problems with the sex scenes, although she added: “They were not all that fun. You don’t go, ’Wow! I get to do a nude scene!’ But Jane was incredibly great and it ended up being sort of hilarious.

"There was hardly anybody in the room. They were some of the last scenes scheduled so we understood she was never going to be gratuitous and she was not going to exploit the situation.”

Campion carefully choreographed the sex scenes, even volunteering to take off her own clothes to make her actors more comfortable.

“We said, ’No thanks, we have enough to worry about,”’ laughed Ryan.