Euphoria's Eric Dane explains his graphic full-frontal penis scene

18 June 2019, 17:25

By Katie Louise Smith

McSteamy's penis was actually a prosthetic. Sorry.

HBO's Euphoria aired its first episode on Sunday June 16 and it's already getting both rave reviews and a few shocked responses online. The new series, starring Zendaya, details an incredibly raw portrayal of teen life in today's society, complete with some very graphic sex scenes.

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While HBO is known for its female nudity, full-frontal male nudity isn't particularly common. In fact, it usually causes a lot of controversy. Back in 2013, Alexander Skarsgård went nude in episode of True Blood and caused a bit of an uproar. Now, with Euphoria, HBO are going even further by showing full-frontal nudity throughout the series.

In the first episode, a fully erect penis was shown on screen thanks to Eric Dane's character Cal Jacobs in an incredibly intense and graphic moment - but it had already been confirmed that it was a prosthetic, and not real.

First of all, yes. Yes, that is Seattle's finest plastic surgeon Dr Mark Sloan aka McSteamy aka one half of Slexie, Eric Dane playing Jacob Elordi's dad, Cal.

The explicit scene - and his character's actions - will likely come as a shock to those who know him from his role on Grey's Anatomy. In the pilot episode, Cal meets 17-year-old trans girl, Jules (played by Hunter Schafer), on an app and they arrange to meet at a hotel, where he commits statutory rape.

Speaking to EW about the scene, Dane explained that the scene required an intimacy expert - something that many sets are now hiring in order to help the actors with their intimate scenes.

“Those scenes are very difficult to shoot,” Dane tells EW. “It helps to have one voice in your ear. One voice that you can express your feelings to, and somebody that is an advocate for the actors. It just simplifies a lot of things and makes for a safe and comfortable environment while shooting something that is fairly uncomfortable to shoot. And certainly, the stuff that we did in the pilot is no exception. It’s a pretty intense scene.”

Despite using a fake penis for the scene, Dane also said he was "willing to do anything that’s critical to the story and crucial to creating a very real and truthful feel to how the story is gonna go down," including filming an isolated shot but it was ultimate decided that a prosthetic should be used for all scenes.

“Using a prosthetic is sort of protocol. It’s protocol and it’s also very considerate to your scene partner,” he said. “There was one isolated shot that I suggested, ‘Look if it makes more sense to not use a prosthetic, I’m willing to go there.’ At the end of the day, because of the context, we decided that the prosthetic was the way to go, and we came to that decision as a group.”

In episode 2 of the HBO series, it's already been reported that there will be a scene featuring a lot of male full-frontal nudity. Viewers can also expect more graphic sex scenes to appear throughout the show.

Ahead of the release of the first episode, Zendaya issued a warning to her fans and followers on Twitter urging them to watch the show with caution and stop if they feel triggered at any point.