A weird question regarding peeing in mainstream movies

[Takashi96 1,075]

Unlike males, females have varied positions when peeing outdoors. So when an actress has to pee outside in a movie scene, are we seeing how she does it in her personal life? Or do you think the director makes suggestions for how the character should pee? "Sorry dear, but I believe Greta would squat much higher than what you're doing!" And how uncomfortable must it be for an actress to have a male director telling her how to pee outside as a woman? 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Takashi96
Clarification

[oliver2 4,418]

1 hour ago, Takashi96 said:

Unlike males, females have varied positions when peeing outdoors. So when an actress has to pee outside in a movie scene, are we seeing how she does it in her personal life? Or do you think the director makes suggestions for how the character should pee? "Sorry dear, but I believe Greta would squat much higher than what you're doing!" And how uncomfortable must it be for an actress to have a male director telling her how to pee outside as a woman? 

Method actor playing William Tell: [stands far back from the urinal]

[Kupar 13,339]

2 hours ago, Takashi96 said:

Unlike males, females have varied positions when peeing outdoors. So when an actress has to pee outside in a movie scene, are we seeing how she does it in her personal life? Or do you think the director makes suggestions for how the character should pee? "Sorry dear, but I believe Greta would squat much higher than what you're doing!" And how uncomfortable must it be for an actress to have a male director telling her how to pee outside as a woman? 

I'm now picturing 'Greta' asking the director to tell her male co-star to lie under her as she pees, because that's generally how she does it at home. (Well, we can all dream, can't we?)

[oliver2 4,418]

Character sheet for Katniss Everdeen: 

…

Pees however Jennifer Lawrence does, it’s fine 

…

[Kupar 13,339]

6 minutes ago, oliver2 said:

Character sheet for Katniss Everdeen: 

…

Pees however Jennifer Lawrence does, it’s fine 

…

Haha! Had to look up the reference, but yeah. That.

[Havelock 1,526]

I've been around the entertainment industry a bit and I would guess it varies with the style of the director. Some let the actors interpret the scene and others are very prescriptive. 

[Takashi96 1,075]

11 hours ago, Havelock said:

I've been around the entertainment industry a bit and I would guess it varies with the style of the director. Some let the actors interpret the scene and others are very prescriptive. 

I would guess many, if not most directors leave it up to the actress to pretend pee in whatever way she's accustomed. Unless there's a problem with her technique being too revealing (or else she has an unorthodox method like standing or getting completely naked from the waist down). In the rare situations where the actress actually pees, I wonder if the director encourages her to be more revealing, so the audience knows it's real?

[Kirby23 954]

To build on what's been said, and as to the question of whether the actress might pee for real, I think it depends on the budget status of the film, and/or how high profile the actress is. 

In a big-budget film, and/or with a higher-profile actress, they'd have some sort of special effects bag/rig for her to wear.

In a low-budget film with a less well-known actress, I'd guess the chances are more likely that the peeing might be real.

And unless the position/specifics of the peeing are important to the plot, I'd guess most directors would just let the actress do her thing whatever way she normally would. 

[HitEmAll 1,066]

This is really one of my favorite topics, I love to imagine how this works. However, I vaguely remember this topic being discussed in some German TV show at some point. I really don't remember the details or the context, but some director or actor explained that in general it is ALWAYS fake peeing, because real peeing would be way way to expensive (because of the extra effort and extra time) without any added value. I think this makes sense, because for the large majority of potential viewers it will not really make a difference, and the extra effort is probably really super expensive. There are a lot of obvious problems, like: can the actress / actor actually pee in the given situation and start the stream in time, will the pee stream look somewhat acceptable (probably completely unpredictable..), having the whole set waiting for someone to be able to pee is a crazy idea, what if you have to repeat the scene (which is very likely because of the potential problems with a real pee stream), etc..

However, obviously there are some movies featuring real peeing. For all of the described reasons it is really cool to have them from time to time, because from an "economical" point of view it really does not make too much sense. I really love movie scenes with actual peeing, a somewhat similar thing that I find super hot are things like performance art, theatre or similar things that feature some real peeing.

[Takashi96 1,075]

On 8/29/2022 at 9:58 AM, Kirby23 said:

To build on what's been said, and as to the question of whether the actress might pee for real, I think it depends on the budget status of the film, and/or how high profile the actress is. 

In a big-budget film, and/or with a higher-profile actress, they'd have some sort of special effects bag/rig for her to wear.

In a low-budget film with a less well-known actress, I'd guess the chances are more likely that the peeing might be real.

And unless the position/specifics of the peeing are important to the plot, I'd guess most directors would just let the actress do her thing whatever way she normally would. 

The "real scenes" I mentioned weren't real due to budget, they were real because the film was pushing the envelope artistically. Like in Nymphomaniac or the Loss of Sexual Innocence. 

[Takashi96 1,075]

On 8/29/2022 at 3:52 PM, HitEmAll said:

This is really one of my favorite topics, I love to imagine how this works. However, I vaguely remember this topic being discussed in some German TV show at some point. I really don't remember the details or the context, but some director or actor explained that in general it is ALWAYS fake peeing, because real peeing would be way way to expensive (because of the extra effort and extra time) without any added value. I think this makes sense, because for the large majority of potential viewers it will not really make a difference, and the extra effort is probably really super expensive. There are a lot of obvious problems, like: can the actress / actor actually pee in the given situation and start the stream in time, will the pee stream look somewhat acceptable (probably completely unpredictable..), having the whole set waiting for someone to be able to pee is a crazy idea, what if you have to repeat the scene (which is very likely because of the potential problems with a real pee stream), etc..

However, obviously there are some movies featuring real peeing. For all of the described reasons it is really cool to have them from time to time, because from an "economical" point of view it really does not make too much sense. I really love movie scenes with actual peeing, a somewhat similar thing that I find super hot are things like performance art, theatre or similar things that feature some real peeing.

Well yes. That seems pretty obvious. What mainstream actress is going to legitimately pee on camera? Actually, don't answer that. I know there are a few who genuinely peed on set. The films I was referring to are unrated, artsy affairs. 

[Kirby23 954]

10 hours ago, Takashi96 said:

Well yes. That seems pretty obvious. What mainstream actress is going to legitimately pee on camera? Actually, don't answer that. I know there are a few who genuinely peed on set. The films I was referring to are unrated, artsy affairs. 

Just for fun - which films/scenes come to mind that were real, or suspected to be real?

[Takashi96 1,075]

13 hours ago, Kirby23 said:

Just for fun - which films/scenes come to mind that were real, or suspected to be real?

Nicole Kidman admitted to actually peeing on Zach Efron in the Paperboy. Oprah Winfrey claimed her peeing scene in Beloved was real. And there's mixed accounts regarding Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke. She said she genuinely peed in one take, but it didn't show up as dramatically as they wanted. So they ended up using a prop pee bag in others. There's some dispute over which take made it into the finished film?

[laughingbeast 414]

If in some mainstream movies actresses pee for real, it must be quite funny to watch their reaction when the director tells them he's still not happy with the result, the actress has to drink another bottle of water, and they have to shoot the scene over and over again.  😀

[Kirby23 954]

6 hours ago, Takashi96 said:

Nicole Kidman admitted to actually peeing on Zach Efron in the Paperboy. Oprah Winfrey claimed her peeing scene in Beloved was real. And there's mixed accounts regarding Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke. She said she genuinely peed in one take, but it didn't show up as dramatically as they wanted. So they ended up using a prop pee bag in others. There's some dispute over which take made it into the finished film?

Thanks!

[Takashi96 1,075]

12 hours ago, laughingbeast said:

If in some mainstream movies actresses pee for real, it must be quite funny to watch their reaction when the director tells them he's still not happy with the result, the actress has to drink another bottle of water, and they have to shoot the scene over and over again.  😀

I think the situation in Holy Smoke was that Kate's pee didn't photograph well. Or wasn't visible enough? Something like that.