Patrick Wilson still gets looks from moms in parks.
The actor, 51, broke out in a series of a roles in the early 2000s, playing a closeted gay Mormon in Mike Nichols’ Angels in America for HBO in 2003 and then Brad, a suburban dad set adrift in Little Children, Todd Field‘s 2006 adaptation of the novel by Tom Perrotta.
Wilson — who currently stars in Millers in Marriage, the latest from Edward Burns — revisited his Little Children experience on a recent episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast.
“I would be at the playground, basically being Brad. I remember a few times getting looks from women that are like, ‘Why do I know you?’ And then you’d see them get all flustered like, ‘Oh — that’s why I remember him,’” Wilson says.
“And it got to a point where where I could just say, ‘Are you thinking about the laundry room scene right now?’” he adds.
The laundry room scene: If you’ve seen the movie, it’s difficult to forget. That’s the scene where Brad and Kate Winslet‘s character, Sarah, another neighborhood mom, finally succumb to a mutual attraction.
The scene — shot long before the days of intimacy coordinators — goes on for quite some time, and features both actors in the nude (almost — there were modesty coverings out of view) being quite vigorous in their simulated lovemaking.
Ahead of filming, Wilson, who only months before had married his wife, actress Dagmara Dominiczyk (she declares the scene “the hottest sex scene on film” in the podcast) set up a dinner with Winslet and then-husband, director Sam Mendes.
“Just to be like, all right, we’re about to start this movie together. We’re going to be very into it. So it kind of leveled the playing field. You could make tons of jokes, but I think we knew the drill,” Wilson explains.
When it came time to shoot the scene, “we were very specific,” he continues. “[Kate] was so cool and gracious and just a gamer — just like, ‘Let’s go for it.’
“There was never one awkward or weird moment. Never one. I loved it,” he adds.
The scene used no body doubles. “That was pre-crossfit. I was a big runner then, I guess,” Wilson says.
As for rumors Winslet bruised her backside filming the sequence, he thinks that probably happened.
“I’m sure there were lots of bruises. Put it this way: I haven’t done a scene like that since post-#MeToo and intimacy coordinators. I do feel a little bit like a dinosaur when it comes to [having appeared in] those kind of love scenes,” he says.
There was another, equally graphic love scene shot with actress Jennifer Connelly, who plays his wife, that was ultimately cut from the film.
At the time of Little Children‘s release, Winslet said, “We rehearsed the scene fully clothed, without anyone in the room; just us and Todd, and we just got a general shape of the scene so we knew what to expect.
“We did look out for each other and we laughed a hell of a lot. It sounds ridiculous but at a certain point you forget that you’re naked with a relative stranger. … My hips and backside really hurt the next day.”
For more from Patrick Wilson on the making of Little Children, listen to the full episode of It Happened in Hollywood.