Showtime's new series, Masters of Sex, is already generating some buzz as it heads towards its September premiere date, with Homeland set to help launch it as the lead-in. Stars Michael Sheen (Dr. William Masters), Lizzy Caplan (Virginia Johnson), Caitlin Fitzgerald (Libby Masters), Nicholas D'Agosto (Ethan Hass), and Teddy Sears (Dr. Austin Langham), and creator, writer and executive producer Michelle Ashford and executive producer Sarah Timberman were on hand at this week's TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour to talk about "getting naked physically and emotionally" in this series that looks at the team who kicked-open the door to the sexual revolution.
As David Nevins, President of Entertainment at Showtime said, "Before William Masters and Virginia Johnson came on the scene in the 1950s, sex was mostly a mystery." Based on the book by Tom Maier, Masters of Sex follows the story of Dr. William Masters, a gynecologist determined to scientifically study and document the nature of human sexual behavior, and his assistant turned co-author, Virginia Johnson.
"Their lives were so complicated and interesting, we've had to embelish very little," Ashford said when asked how much creative license they'd taken in the creation of the series.
For her part, Caplan felt that her previous work had readied her to take on this role, which she finds to be one of the most exciting and challenging of her career.
"I've been fortunate enough to play a lot of [free-thinking] characters," the actress reflected. "And I think when you're telling a story set in the present day, you can do a lot of that work by wardrobe choices or even hair color or, like, a strategically placed tattoo. Virginia Johnson looks like every other woman around her. It's what's inside of her that makes her different and the choices that she makes. That's what makes her different. I do feel like a lot of the women I've played leading up to this point have prepared me to play this woman, who, I think, is by far the most layered and by far the toughest. And when I think about some of the stuff that I've done with other characters, I just have to sort of multiply the intensity of it when placing it in this time period, in this part of the country, when she was not offered any sort of support for her more alternative decisions. And so every decision she made was ‑‑ I mean, it resonated especially loudly for me."
Caplan compared what Johnson did for women, and society, to the freedom that her mother had created for her as she was growing up. "I was fortunately raised in a household where questions were encouraged and not judged. I was not dirty for asking these questions," Caplan said. "Virginia Johnson did for millions of women what my mother did for me, for generations of women to not feel ashamed. Before Masters and Johnson, women were told things [sexual issues] were all their fault ... and that's some bullsh**."
"People are surprised by the frank discussions of sex on the show more than the portrayal of sex," Timberman said. "The things these people talk about are not generally talked about. It makes for interesting talk in the writers' room."
For his part, Sheen finds that the real crux of the story is about the emotional intimacy, and the struggles the characters have in that arena, which he feels is both universal and timeless. His character has some very specific sexual issues, which makes his work particularly fascinating. Sheen doesn't believe that Masters' struggle had to do with a repressed nature, though.
"I don't think it's about being prudish," the actor said. "I think it's about trying to balance a sense of control in this man's life. He's sort of a mystery to himself, really. He has so many locked rooms inside himself that he has to tread very carefully and make sure that he tries to control his environment so much. So I think that creates kind of what you might call prudishness, but actually sort of a lock-down desire to keep control. I don't think that's necessarily typical of everyone in the society at that time. But obviously things have changed in many ways since the '50s when the show is started, in terms of sexuality and how much access we have to images of it and information about it. But the same problems always apply. It doesn't matter whether we know a lot more about sex now or there's a lot more access to it. The same problems of intimacy, of dealing with other people, of connecting and being vulnerable with other people, which is what the show is ultimately about, still applies now, I think."
The actors learned that of the two kinds of sex scenes that they were called upon to perform in the show, the more natural "lovemaking" variety and the "clinical studies" sex that Masters and Johnson both engaged in and observed; that the clinical variety was the more challenging.
"A couple making love is far easier [to depict] than some fluorescent lighting, wired up, don't kiss, don't look at each other, penis in vagina [scenario]," Caplan said. "Not being able to kiss, you feel even more naked, so to speak."
Sheen, who relayed some of the more unusual sex scenes that he'd taken part in throughout the course of his career (hint, some involve chocolate and some Oscar Wilde) agreed. "It's a scientific thing where you're not supposed to have any emotional response. That's really difficult."
Though the actor also said that after awhile, certain aspects of the production became almost passe. "We've seen so many people do bizarre things in front of you, you get used to it. I never thought I'd get to the point that there's a naked woman in front of you masturbating and you almost don't notice. But I actually broke that barrier on the show."
Masters of Sex premieres Sunday, Sept. 29 at 10/9c, following premiere of Homeland Season 3.
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