There’s a movie coming out in a few weeks where Alexander Skarsgård plays a literal wicker man who comes to life and has sex with Olivia Colman. And apparently, it’s supposed to be funny. But also sexy. But mostly funny? I don’t know, and honestly, I’m not sure the filmmakers knew either until they actually started shooting this thing.

When “Funny Sex Scenes” Become Actually Sexy

So here’s what happened. Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer – the co-directors behind Wicker – thought they were making a comedy. The whole premise is absurd enough: lonely fisherwoman wishes for a husband, gets one made of wicker, he comes to life, medieval village loses its collective mind. The sex scenes were written as jokes. Literal punchlines.

But then Skarsgård showed up in costume. With Colman. And intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien. And suddenly the scenes that were supposed to make you laugh started making people feel… other things.

“We always thought of the sex scenes as the comedy of the film, too. They were supposed to be played for laughs, and they are,” Wilson told The Hollywood Reporter. “But I think once we actually had Alexander in costume, Olivia and Ita O’Brien, our intimacy coordinator, working together on these scenes – that’s when they did become surprisingly more sexy than we thought they would.”

Which is kind of the perfect encapsulation of this entire project, isn’t it? Nobody quite knew what they had until it was actually happening.

The “Beautiful” Monster Problem

Here’s the thing about casting someone like Skarsgård for a role like this – you can’t just get any tall guy and wrap him in twigs. Wilson and Fischer were very specific about needing someone “strikingly beautiful” for the Wicker Husband character. Not handsome in a conventional leading-man way, but beautiful in a way that makes an entire medieval village stop and stare.

“For everything that happens with the villagers, he needed to be very striking,” Wilson explained. “That was the brief with the workshop – we wanted him to be strikingly beautiful and in the-“

And yeah, that tracks. Because if you’re going to tell a story about a wicker creation causing a stir, he can’t just be… fine. He has to be the kind of unsettling gorgeous that makes people uncomfortable. The kind that makes you understand why an entire community would lose its mind over him.

Heavy Prosthetics, Heavy Expectations

Skarsgård’s talked about the physical demands of the role – apparently the prosthetics were no joke. Which makes sense when you’re playing a man literally woven from wicker. But what’s interesting is how the directors approached it. They needed him recognizable enough to be attractive, strange enough to be unsettling, and flexible enough to, you know, do all those sex scenes that were supposed to be funny but turned out sexy. It's not the first time intense on-screen chemistry has caught everyone off guard – just look at Shia's On-Set Romance Curse: Every Costar He's Dated.

It’s a weird tightrope to walk. Too much prosthetic and you lose the human element. Too little and the whole conceit falls apart.

What Critics Are Actually Saying

The people who’ve seen Wicker ahead of its release can’t stop talking about those sex scenes. Not in a scandalized way (this isn’t 1997), but in a genuinely curious “wait, how did they pull this off?” kind of way. Because on paper, this should be ridiculous. Wicker man. Medieval fisherwoman. Comedy. Sex.

But from what I’m hearing, it actually works? Which is maybe the most surprising thing about this whole bizarre project.

“Once we actually had Alexander in costume, Olivia and Ita O’Brien working together on these scenes – that’s when they did become surprisingly more sexy than we thought they would.”

That quote keeps sticking with me because it reveals something honest about the creative process. They didn’t set out to make something horny. They set out to make something funny. And then the alchemy of having the right actors, the right intimacy coordinator, and the right approach turned it into something else entirely. Something that apparently manages to be both.

The Twisted Fairytale We Didn’t Know We Needed

Look, I’m not gonna pretend I know exactly what to expect from this movie. A twisted fairytale starring Skarsgård as a wicker husband and Colman as the woman who wished him into existence? In a medieval village? With sex scenes that are simultaneously comedic and surprisingly sexy?

It sounds like absolute chaos. The good kind, hopefully.

What’s kind of fascinating is how much hype is building just weeks before release. This isn’t some massive franchise with years of built-in anticipation. It’s a weird, original concept with two incredible actors doing something completely off-the-wall. And people are genuinely excited about it. Maybe because we’re all tired of the same recycled stories. Maybe because “wicker husband causes sexual chaos in medieval village” is exactly the kind of unhinged premise we need right now. The same thing happened with Neil Young's Stunning Verdict: Why 'Digger' Changes Everything – sometimes the wildest swings connect hardest.

Why This Might Actually Matter

Here’s what I think is really going on with Wicker. We’ve spent so long in an era of franchises and proven IP and risk-averse storytelling that when something genuinely bizarre comes along – something that trusts its audience to handle weird tonal shifts and strange premises – people pay attention.

The directors didn’t know their comedy would turn sexy. The actors committed fully to something absurd. The intimacy coordinator helped them find something real in the ridiculous. And now we’ve got this thing that nobody can quite categorize, which is probably exactly what makes it interesting.

Will it be good? Who knows. But it’ll definitely be something. And honestly, in a landscape of calculated blockbusters and algorithmic content, “definitely something” is starting to sound pretty appealing. Even if that something involves Alexander Skarsgård made of wicker having surprisingly sexy comedy sex with Olivia Colman in medieval times.

Sometimes cinema is weird. Sometimes that’s the whole point.