Sonya Walger Tell Me You Love Me

Sonya Walger Tell Me You Love Me

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HBO’s series are all about taking traditional TV out of its comfort zones.
The Sopranos and Deadwood broke barriers of profane language and brutal violence; Sex and the City and Curb Your Enthusiasm bust the envelope of relationships and social comfort in comedy: Six Feet Under and Big Love pushed the boundaries of mortality, morality and so-called “normal” family dynamics; and now the cable network’s latest offering, Tell Me You Love Me , takes the sexual frontier and intimacy issues to the edge.
The show chronicles three couples in various stages of crises in their sex lives. Instead of cutting away at the sex scenes, Tell Me You Love Me explores the drama within them. As such, it achieves so much realism that many journalists wondered if the actors were actually engaging in some form of intercourse. Creator Cynthia Mort lamented having to answer such questions.
“They are actors first,” said Mort . “They will not ask anything of themselves nor will I ask anything of them that they’re uncomfortable doing. They’re actors. They are committed to those characters. Sonya is not going to put her hands in a place that she shouldn’t be. And I think that’s appropriate. They are actors first. They do their work first. That’s what they do, and I think they did it beautifully. I think they do.”
Of course, common sense suggests that if they can fake Forrest Gump meeting dead presidents, flying superheroes and ancient Sparta, they can certainly fake a sex scene. Why not just say, “Of course they’re not f*cking. Are you crazy?” Mort feels even the negative answer justifies the question too much.
“Because this question is ridiculous,” she says. “I just think the question is so silly.”
Her actresses, on the other hand, had to contain themselves. They wanted to assure everyone that they were professionals. Michelle Borth , who plays the young fiancé in doubt Jamie, even gave some journalists the negative answer on which Mort took the high ground.
“I was really adamant about it because you go about a sex scene you go about any other scene that you’re going to do,” said Borth . “Whether it’s a really dramatic scene or it’s a fighting scene, it’s the same exact way. To imply that we were having sex is offensive in the sense that we’re not porn stars. We’re hired actors.”
Then Borth softened her stance: “Actually, I’m flattered they asked me if we’re really having sex because that means I really did my job. We made the scene look real. You should do that going into every single scene that you do, whether it’s a sex scene or whatever it may be.”
Ally Walker plays Katie, a long married mom who has not been sexual with her husband for quite some time. She reminded viewers that the purpose of the show’s sex is to address deeper issues.
“This is an exploration of real intimacy, and sex happens to be a part of real intimacy between people,” said Walker . “It’s not the melodramatic of ‘I love you.’ It’s not always to the bases. It’s that this is really the real deal and I think what all of us liked about this script and about these scripts, they really explore the intimacy in between people. Sex does happen to be a part of that, but it’s not gratuitous and it’s not phony and it’s staged accordingly. So it has a very real feeling which I think does kind of upset some people, but at least for me, it didn’t seem gratuitous and it didn’t make me nervous.”
Sonya Walger plays Carolyn, a woman so obsessed with getting pregnant that her relationship suffers. Sex is a vital aspect of that process, and the show uses it to portray her character flaws.
“I understand but don’t necessarily share Carolyn’s single mindedness,” Walger said. “I’m delighted to say that I’m not quite obsessive as she is, but I am in different ways so I don’t know. I love Carolyn. I really do. I understand her. I’m not like her necessarily in a lot of ways but I love her humor and I love her trying to come together with her husband. I think if you’re very single-minded as my character is, who’s a very ambitious woman, I think it can get muddled with a need to succeed and stop becoming a need to have a baby. I think that’s what happens to them is they lose sight of what they’re doing.”
With three different stages of relationships at play, Mort is tackling issues that just don’t make it into mainstream entertainment. There are plenty of sitcoms joking about sexless marriages, baby comedies about funny cravings or big fat wedding movies about event planning, but Tell Me You Love Me won’t let viewers off that easy.
“I think it’s in many ways, nobody wants to talk about not having sex in long term relationships,” said Mort . “Number one, no one will admit it. No one ever talks about it. Everybody lies about it. Everybody jokes about it but to really get in there and look at what happens between two people in that day-in and day-out intimacy is a different kind of creative endeavor. It requires amazing actors, and we were very, very lucky. Without the actors that we had, I know the show wouldn’t be what it is. They were able to take this material, that’s not easy material and consistently, week after week, be true to the characters that we created. I was really lucky.”
Though it may require the actors to go to painful places every day, dealing with issues they may relate to themselves, they are all committed to addressing the issues for our entertainment. Walger felt the social importance of Tell Me You Love Me .
“I think intimacy is the last taboo in many ways,” Walger said. “Not sex, not violence but the actual language and idiom of how a couple speaks to each other. In the nondramatic terms without anyone screwing the nanny, without anyone dying, but in the just tiny nuanced way of how a relationship stays and evolves or doesn’t get stuck in its status. I think nobody’s doing that. Nobody’s ever done that, certainly not with the compassion that Cynthia writes.”
Kids may still stay up late to sneak a peak at the naked ladies on HBO, but they will be in for some harsh lessons about things to come. Perhaps if Tell Me You Love Me can educate the masses, a new generation will grow up better able to deal with common relationship problems.
“I think what’s great about this show is you can learn from it,” said Borth . “You really can learn from it and that’s why I think it’s great. It is heavy. It does bring you to a certain place but at the same time, it has these moments where I really think you can learn a ton from the show.”
Tell Me You Love Me premieres September 9 on HBO.
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A drama about three couples and the therapist they share. A drama about three couples and the therapist they share. A drama about three couples and the therapist they share.
In an interview with "The A.V. Club", Adam Scott said that his contract for this show went very specifically into what kind of and how much nudity he would have to show. He also said that while they were negotiating the contract, the show-runners wanted him to agree to full-frontal nudity, but when he balked at that, they created a prosthetic penis that he had to wear and his character's wife (played by 'Sonya Walger') had to handle. It was rigged to "ejaculate" by having a prop man hiding behind a couch to pump hair conditioner through it.
And I'm French... Who wanna see "realistic" sex and relationships problems on screen when you can have lots (and lots, and lots) of them in your real life? Like in a french movie, nobody seems to have (or to need) a job or to care about anything else than their little and meaningless lives. Furthermore, in real life, relationships and sex are directly related to money and job problems and to your social background. Nothing is said in the show about the social aspects of relationships - of course, because otherwise it would never air because it would be truly disturbing. Showing explicit sex (or explicit violence) is always a cheap way for people to pretend that they are "open mind" and "liberal" (like some famous editor of adult content magazines who manages to make everybody forget he's just a pimp). We sure know that in France where 70% of the movies are just soft porn with bad lightening (well, not exactly: the characters have some books in their homes so you can tell you're seeing a "real" movie). Besides, what's the matter with those women shaved to look like twelve years old little girls or porn "stars"? In Californication there was a very good line about that... Well, it's difficult to me to understand how people can find this show disturbing. Sadly, they are plenty of more disturbing things in the world. However, if prude people are offended, that's a good point!
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American cable television erotic drama series

^ Rice, Lynette (July 28, 2008). "Tell Me You Love Me: HBO Pulls the Plug After All" . Entertainment Weekly .

^ Owen, Rob (July 16, 2007). "Tuned In: Star Jones unveils new look in promoting new talk show" . Pittsburgh Post-Gazette .

^ "HBO gets raw -- or is it raunchy? -- with sexually explicit 'Tell Me You Love Me' " . Los Angeles Times . July 14, 2007. Archived from the original on May 20, 2009.

^ Johnson, Richard; Paula Froelich; Bill Hoffmann; Corynne Steindler (September 1, 2007). "PASSION PUT-ON" . New York Post . Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.

^ Topel, Fred (9 September 2007). " 'Tell Me You Love Me': A Different Kind of Real Sex for HBO" . Hollywood.com. Archived from the original on 30 September 2012 . Retrieved 15 February 2012 .

^ Morrow, Martin (October 1, 2007). "Sex Talk" . CBC News . Archived from the original on June 30, 2010 . Retrieved 15 February 2012 .

^ Crook, John (September 9, 2007). " 'Tell Me You Love Me' Bares Bodies and Souls" . Zap2it .

^ Poniewozik, James (9 December 2007). "Top 10 New TV Series: #3. Tell Me You Love Me" . Time . Archived from the original on December 12, 2007 . Retrieved 15 February 2012 .

^ "HBO's 'Tell Me' speaks to few" . Variety . September 11, 2007.

^ Claustro, Lisa (October 5, 2007). "HBO Renews 'Tell Me You Love Me' " . Buddy TV. Archived from the original on March 2, 2009 . Retrieved October 8, 2007 .

Tell Me You Love Me is an American cable television drama series that premiered on HBO and The Movie Network on September 9, 2007.

The series was created by Cynthia Mort and originally conceived as Sexlife . The pilot episode was produced and directed by Patricia Rozema and shot in Winnipeg , Manitoba . The series was picked up by HBO for a second season in October 2007, but was ultimately canceled in July 2008 when Mort said she and the network "were unable to find the direction of the show for the second season". [1]

Tell Me You Love Me revolves around three couples, Jamie and Hugo (Borth and Kirby), Katie and David (Walker and DeKay), and Carolyn and Palek (Walger and Scott), each with their own problems concerning intimacy in their relationships. They seek the help of therapist May Foster (Alexander), who herself has relationship problems with her partner Arthur (Selby).

Each episode screens without any introduction, no title cards , and no opening credits . The episodes are also shot with handheld cameras, giving the show a somewhat documentary-like feel. No episode has a music score or soundtrack , except for one song which generally starts in the last two to three scenes and carries over the closing credits . The title card for the show is not shown until immediately before the closing credits.

The series gained early publicity because of its extremely realistic depictions of sexual intercourse , oral sex and masturbation . [2] [3] [4] [5] Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, and a notable lack of comment on the matter from either HBO or the production team, the sex scenes were simulated. Director Patricia Rozema was among those to have addressed this issue directly:

But it's not real, it's simulated. At one point, one of the producers was floating this idea in the trade papers that it would be real sex in the series. I immediately said, "Well, find another director, I don't want to do that." I wasn't interested in that. [6]
With regard to these controversial scenes actress Jane Alexander has said the following:

You know, people tend to believe those scenes, when they see them, are real, but they're not. They're acted. Our union doesn't even let us have any real sex, not that we would anyway. But just acting with someone like David [Selby], whom I have known for so long, it was fine. Those scenes are never easy. [7]
Time ' s James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 New TV Series of 2007, ranking it at #3. [8]

The first episode of the show only attracted a total of about 910,000 viewers—far fewer than what the network had been pulling in for previous series such as Rome , Deadwood , and even the ill-fated John from Cincinnati . [9] A month after its debut, HBO claimed the show had drawn a total of 3.1 million viewers across seven broadcasts. [10]

September 9 ( 2007-09-09 ) – November 11, 2007 ( 2007-11-11 )
The Complete First Season (כל פרקי העונה הראשונה)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
British-American actress (born 1974)
Walger at the Solidarity With Writers march and rally on Hollywood Blvd. , 20 November 2007
This section needs to be updated . Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. ( March 2022 )

^ "Sonya Walger: Summary" . TV.com. 16 December 2009 . Retrieved 16 December 2009 .

^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b0OWFCmYqk on Craig Ferguson

^ AskMen Editors. "Sonya Walger" . AskMen . Archived from the original on 16 January 2016 . Retrieved 3 August 2015 . {{ cite web }} : |author= has generic name ( help )

^ "Sonya Walger" . Metacritic . Retrieved 3 August 2015 .

^ Scott Collins (14 July 2007). " 'Love' and sex on HBO" . Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 3 October 2008 .

^ "Sex talk:Patricia Rozema gets intimate with new TV series" . Canada: CBC. 1 October 2007 . Retrieved 23 August 2010 .

^ "HBO has everyone talking about the sex in "Tell Me You Love Me" " . blogs.orlandosentinel.com. 13 July 2007. Archived from the original on 16 October 2007.

^ " 'Tell Me You Love Me' Bares Bodies and Souls" . zap2it.com. 9 September 2007.

^ "New Stills from Crime Thriller The Factory" . Dread Central . Retrieved 3 August 2015 .

^ Michael Ausiello (19 August 2014). " 'Scandal' Season 4: Sonya Walger Joins Cast in Secret Role - TVLine" . TVLine . Retrieved 3 August 2015 .

^ Denise Petski (22 July 2015). "Sonya Walger Joins ABC's 'The Catch' As Kieren's Cohort - Deadline" . Deadline . Retrieved 3 August 2015 .

^ Orloff, Brian (22 September 2009). "Lost's Sonya Walger Calls Married Life a 'Sweet Thing' " . people,com . Retrieved 19 June 2011 .

^ Walger, Sonya (5 March 2013). "Billie Rosie Holmes, born on Valentine's Day, love of our lives and bane of our sleep" . Twitter . Retrieved 26 February 2014 .

^ Walger, Sonya (23 May 2013). "3290 new citizens. And I am one of them. Got a manicure as a mark of respect, you understand" . Twitter . Retrieved 26 February 2014 .

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sonya Walger .
Sonya Walger (born 6 June 1974) is a British actress who also holds American citizenship. She had starring roles in the short-lived sitcoms The Mind of the Married Man (2001–2002) and Coupling (2003) before landing her role as Penny Widmore in the ABC drama series Lost (2006–2010). Walger later starred on Tell Me You Love Me (2007), FlashForward (2009–2010), Common Law (2012), The Catch (2016–2017) and For All Mankind (2019–2022).

Walger was born in Hampstead , London. [1] She was educated at the independent Wycombe Abbey School and at Christ Church, Oxford , where she studied English Literature , receiving a first class degree . [2] Walger is conversational in French and fluent in Spanish, as her father was Argentinian. [3]

Walger began her career on British television. In 1998, she guest-starred in an episode of ITV crime series, Midsomer Murders . She had the recurring role in the BBC 1 sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart in 1999, and appeared in two episodes of the crime/drama The Vice . Also in 1999, she played the daughter of newspaper magnate Max Van der Vuurst, Hilde, in the Heat of the Sun story "The Sport of Kings". The following year, Walger made her film debut in the biographical drama Eisenstein . In 2001, she moved to the United States and was cast as Donna Barnes on the HBO comedy series, The Mind of the Married Man . The series was cancelled after two seasons. In 2003, she starred on the short-lived U.S. version of Coupling , which aired on NBC. In 2004, Walger played Nicole Noone opposite Noah Wyle in the TNT television film, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear , for which she received Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television nomination. [4]

From 2006 to 2010, Walger had a recurring role as Penny Widmore in the ABC drama series, Lost . She also had recurring roles on Sleeper Cell , CSI: NY , and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles . In 2007, Walger appeared in the original Broadway production of Frost/Nixon , as Charlotte Cushing, David Frost 's then-girlfriend. Then she starred in the controversial HBO series Tell Me You Love Me . The series gained notoriety even before the first episode had aired because of the frequency and extremely realistic nature of its sex scenes. Despite persistent rumours to the contrary, these scenes were eventually confirmed as simulated by several individuals intimately connected with the show. With reference to the manual masturbation apparently performed by Walger on actor Adam Scott at the end of the pilot episode, [5] director Patricia Rozema and Walge
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