Maggie Gyllenhaal Is Sick of Having Sex on ‘The Deuce’

When HBO announced that it was working on a gritty drama about the sex work in the ’70s, we knew there was going to be a lot of steamy scenes. But The Deuce‘s constant sex scenes even made a great Maggie Gyllenhaal hit a breaking point.

“There’s so much transactional sex,” she said during a panel at Vulture Festival.

Gyllenhaal plays Candy, a Times Square street prostitute who is drawn into the emerging porn industry. Much of Season 1 focuses on Candy becoming more and more frustrated with street work and craving a new life. The role requires Gyllenhaal to frequently film sex scenes, and the actress revealed that these scenes caused her to hit a breaking point halfway though Season 1.

“I was a part of so many scenes where I would like, meet an actor who had one scene, we would have a sex scene together, and then they would leave and that would be it. And it felt very much like what Candy’s doing, it was like a transaction and then you’re on to the next thing,” she said. “I did get a little tired of it by the end of The Deuce to be completely honest. And I think part of that is how Candy felt. By the end of The Deuce, she was like, ‘I’m fucking over it.’”

But instead of letting her frustration dampen her passion for the project, the actress used it into her work. “Candy is [at first] like, ‘I’m cool, I’m fine, it’s all good,’ and by Episode 5 she’s like, ‘Actually I cannot function anymore like this or I will die.’ That’s different stakes than I had,” she said. “So, I guess my feelings about it changed as her feelings about it changed, and maybe her feelings about it changed because I was getting a little tired of it.”

Stream The Deuce on HBO Go and HBO NOW