Bringing complexity to comedy is not easy.

Hollywood journalist brought together stars Aidy Bryant, Kaley Cuoco, Lena Waithe, Cristin Milioti, Holly Hunter and Jean Smart for their new TV Comedy Actress Roundtable.

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During their conversation, the actresses discuss the difficulty of filming sex scenes for their shows.

“Especially for intimate scenes because I’m 18 years old and there’s a different process for an intimate scene with that size element,” says Bryant. “And, yeah, there’s a little quirk about it because it feels like you’re stepping into uncharted territory in some ways. But I always felt very fortified by the story where I was like, ‘OK, I know what I’m here to accomplish, and I was in the writers’ room, so I know why we’re doing this and what. is funny this. ‘ And it was easier to grasp than to say “Oh, I’m in my underwear.”

Milioti adds: “I was so scared. Thank god i knew Billy [Magnussen] for 10 years. The worst was they had a camera right here [right up to her face] and they were like, ‘Great, now make an orgasm like it’s real. Now do it like you’re pretending for him. Now do it however you want… ‘They made me do, like, 20 orgasms, and I was so embarrassed. I came home that day thinking, ‘Why am I doing this ?!’ “

For Cuoco, shooting an intimate scene like this was completely new.

“I had never done any kind of sex scene, and I had one in ‘Flight Attendant’ with Michiel [Huisman]. He had been in “Game of Thrones”, so he had done all these scenes, and I had no idea. When they called ‘cut’ I was hovering over him like I was on the toilet. I’m like ‘I’m not touching anything, I’m not looking at anything’, ”she laughs. ” I did not know what to do. He said to me: ‘You act so weird, you do that way weirder than you should be.’ But I was totally out of my element.

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While the comedy can be straightforward and fun, the actresses are all about struggling to bring complexity to their characters.

The former ‘Big Bang Theory’ star said, “There was a constant conversation like, ‘Well she must be nice’. And I was like, ‘We’re playing a complicated woman here. Like, not everything is friendly, and we can still like it. But we’ve probably all faced this in our careers. And I kept pushing, like, this girl has a lot of issues and it’s okay and we’re gonna show it and maybe it’ll get to somebody else.

“This is definitely something I fight very hard for,” adds Milioti. “My favorite movie growing up was ‘Beetlejuice’, and I wanted to be ‘Beetlejuice’. I wanted to crawl out of a grave and eat a bug and like honk my crotch and own Winona Ryder. I didn’t want to sit there blinking and being “the fun girl.” I never wanted this.

Waithe says, “It’s important for us to see ourselves this way. It’s like, it’s OK for us to be a hero, it’s OK for us to be a villain. We all live somewhere in between, depending on the day. But it can be difficult when you’re part of an alienated group and you’re so rarely seen on TV. There’s a reason the Huxtables worked first. People want to see palatable people of color, not complicated people of color. That’s why it’s so important for me to keep writing these complicated characters that are flawed, interesting, and broken, because that’s the only way people will see us as human beings.