50-year-old Nicole Kidman stars in HBO's popular drama, Big Little Lies, as abused victim Celeste Wright who has a violent and complicated relationship with Perry, played by co-star Alexander Skarsgård, 40. Though we might like to think it's just a movie and the sex scenes are not real, Nicole disclosed in a recent interview that filming the aggressive sex scenes took an emotional toll on her.

In a recent interview with W Magazine, Nicole said the shocking sex scenes left her with bruises and she felt "humiliated" after filming.

Her co-star Alexander Skarsgård also disclosed in a different interview that shooting the scenes took a toll on him and his co-star and they developed a coping mechanism that required checking up on each other off set.

Speaking to W about the effect the scenes had on her, Nicole said:

"I was just lying there, naked in half-torn underwear. I remember lying on the floor in the bathroom at the end of a difficult scene, and I just wouldn't get up in-between takes."

She added:

I was just lying there, basically naked in half-torn underwear, and Jean-Marc Vallée (the director) would come over and place a towel over me. It was very hard. At times it felt dangerous and really upsetting, and I would go home afterwards and I would feel - I would keep on a very brave face at work and then I would go home and I didn't realise how much it had penetrated me."

The award-winning actress previously admitted to taking pain medication after being left bruised from the violent scenes. She told US Vogue that her husband Keith Urban, 49, was distressed to see her return home from filming "covered in deep, massive bruises".

She said: "He was devastated seeing it but then he would say, ''But I have an artist wife!''"

Alexander discussed his troubled character in the drama series and disclosed the coping mechanisms he and his co-stars developed to "shake off" the intensity on set.
He told Vanity Fair: