Rob Lowe Says Actors Are Called ‘Brave’ Now for Doing Sex Scenes, but in ‘Our Day, It Was Required… There Was the Page 73 Rule’

Rob Lowe welcomed “Sex and the City” favorite Kristin Davis onto his “Literally!” podcast and the two discussed the lack of sexy movies in today’s Hollywood. Lowe remembered the studio dumping his 1988 movie “Masquerade” because “it was too sexy,” and the duo marveled over how that wouldn’t likely happen in the industry these days.

“Nobody has sex scenes in movies anymore,” Lowe proclaimed before taking back the comment because A24’s “Babygirl” recently opened and was “great.”

Directed by Halina Reijn, “Babygirl” stars Nicole Kidman as a powerful CEO whose personal and professional life is upended when she begins a steamy affair with an office intern (Harris Dickinson). Kidman won best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance. The movie features several sex scenes as Kidman’s character explores her submissive kink. Lowe loved the movie but thought the response was interesting.

“They’re like, ‘It’s so brave. She’s so brave,’” Lowe said. “She’s brave because she has a sex scene? Like, that’s brave now. In our day, it was required.”

“There was the page 73 rule,” he continued. “Back in the day the sex scene was always on page 73. You got a script and were like, ‘Am I going to be naked in this?’ And you didn’t have to read the whole script. You just went to page 73 because that middle second act… what do you do? It’s the toughest sledding in storytelling so they ‘Blue Lagoon’ it. But now, it’s so brave.”

Speaking more broadly about changing taboos in Hollywood, Lowe added: “I always feel, like, out of chaos comes opportunity. My attitude is always you make the most of it [and] disruption is actually a great time to build new things. If you can be one of the nimble ones and you could be one of the forward-thinking ones … not entrenched and not trying to recreate yesterday but try to imagine tomorrow, it’s your time.”

Watch Lowe’s full interview with Davis on the “Literally!” podcast in the video below.