‘Don’t kill me with sex scenes’, actor tells film producer

A generic sex scene

 

South Africa apparently needs a Jim Iyke in their film industry.

An actor in Pretoria recently prayed a South African court to nullify his contract with a film producer because of too many sex scenes. The court ordered him back to location but told the producer not to compel him to act in any more movie sex scenes.

 

Lushen Naidoo, a financial analyst and part-time actor, was ordered last month by Judge Ferdi Preller to continue acting in the film “And Now?” on condition that the film’s producer Natalie Raphil gave him a script and shooting schedule.

 

This week, Naidoo asked the court for leave to appeal against the ruling, and said the many sex scenes in the movie affected his physical and mental health, especially as he was not a professional actor. He also complained that the movie schedule interfered with his work and his relationship with his girlfriend.

 

“The number of sex scenes is more than 50... The number of re-shoots requires a level of performance that is not possible for me,” he said in an affidavit. 

 

According to Sowetan, Naidoo said he had been led to believe that the film would be completed in even less time than it took to make Raphil’s first film, “Behind 2010” in which he was the lead actor, but was required to do little acting.

 

It was already two years later and there was apparently no end in sight, he said.

 

Raphil asked Preller to force Naidoo to comply with the previous court order, despite the pending appeal.

 

Naidoo claimed he had been required to act in a number of “extremely suspicious” scenes, including openly fondling an actress in a public cinema and having sex in the cinema’s toilet in Lenasia.

 

He said a palm video recorder had been placed in his room and cameras recording the whole night. He was told to sleep with the actress and have sex with her on camera.

 

Raphil insisted he had only been asked to simulate sex.

 

Preller read extracts from the script, which he said seemed like “the real McCoy” and “came very close to a pornographic film”.

 

Raphil said Naidoo’s withdrawal would cause her and the film’s crew irreparable harm, as three-quarters of the film had already been completed and R8 million of the R11 million budget spent.

 

On Thursday, Preller ordered Naidoo to render his services to Raphil pending the outcome of his appeal, on condition that this did not interfere with his full-time job as an analyst.

 

Other conditions included that he would not be expected “to engage in any scenes requiring full frontal nudity from him”, or to ”engage in sex scenes where actual intercourse is required from him by the scripts or description of the scene”.

 

He would also not be required to engage in any other sexual acts with any actor or actress as part of the filming of the scene.