In bed with Brad and the face that launched a Hollywood epic

As the girl who gets to bed Brad Pitt in the new epic Troy, actress Rose Byrne has made a lot of women jealous.

But the 24-year-old newcomer today said filming the love scene with him was not that easy.

The Australian plays Briseis, who is captured by the Greeks and given to Achilles (Pitt) as a tribute. The pair fall for each other and their affair almost changes the course of the war.

Today Byrne said that love scenes were “always terribly awkward”.

She added: “You are in weird underwear. It’s very technical. You have tape all over your bum.

“There are 40 men staring at you through cameras. It’s like someone says ‘move your head Brad’ and you’re like ‘oh, are you all right? And hopefully you’re trying to simulate a really beautiful love scene.

“After the first take it’s OK, it gets better. It’s good to have to have a sense of humour about it and laugh about it, and I really trusted Brad.”

Meanwhile, actress Diane Kruger says she wasn’t intimidated about playing the woman whose face launched a thousand ships.

The German star plays Helen, whose decision to leave her husband for Paris (Orlando Bloom) sparks war with the Greeks.

The 27-year-old said she could not let the beautiful reputation of the character daunt her.

“There’s only so much you can do about that apart from spending three hours in hair and make-up,” she said.

“I had very little experience before Troy and I had never played such an emotional character.

“There are a lot of scenes where she doesn’t say anything but her emotions still have to come through”.

Director Wolfgang Petersen revealed he auditioned thousands of beautiful women for the epic before finding Kruger.

He joked: “It was a long, long search around the whole earth…it was very, very hard to watch three thousand beautiful women.”

Women whose faces could launch around 212 ships had walked into the auditions, he joked, until Kruger appeared.

“I was sitting slumped in my chair and was in a cynical mood. I heard: “’I have a 855 here’. I said ‘what?’. All of a sudden Diane Kruger popped up.

“I sat upright in my chair. She was so good, so beautiful. She had greatness in her eyes.”

He said studio bosses wanted a famous face for the part but eventually he got his own way.

Peterson said he knew Lord of the Rings actor Bloom was perfect for the part of Paris when he was hoarded by fans during the audition.

“Paris is a very famous man, all the girls fall for him. When all those girls were screaming about him (Bloom) I knew I had made a good choice.”