Why Jake Gyllenhaal admitted sex scene with Jennifer Aniston was ‘torture’

Jake Gyllenhaal has opened up about what it was like to film an x-rated scene with Jennifer Aniston, and he didn't hold back.

Let us cast your minds back to 2002... or if you can't remember that far back, perhaps you've still seen the film The Good Girl.

The comedy-drama stars Aniston as Justine Last, and Gyllenhaal as Holden Worther.

30-year-old Justine is a bored suburban wife who works at a big-box store, Retail Radio, but her life changes forever when Holden is hired as a cashier.

Holden is eight years Justine's junior, but despite this fact they have a mutual connection and share an attraction for one another.

Justine embarks on an affair with Holden, and the two then have a tumultuous relationship, characterised by Holden's unpredictable nature.

One of the sex scenes between the two takes place in a motel and Gyllenhaal opened up during an interview on The Howard Stern Show about what it was really like to get fake-steamy with Aniston.

He admitted he had a 'crush' on her at the time, before joking that the scenes were 'torture'.

He said: "It was torture, yes it was, but it was also not torture. I mean, come on. It was like a mix of both.”

He opened up about the steamy scene (Searchlight Pictures)

Stern then queried: "Did you say to Jennifer Aniston, 'Listen Jennifer, I'm not trying to be rude here, if you're feeling something - protrusion or whatever - I can't control this'?"

Gyllenhaal then quipped in response: "Yes, I said it just like that."

The now 43-year-old star said the scenes were ‘awkward’, as oftentimes there are as many as 50 people in the room watching while it's filmed.

He reassured: "That doesn't turn me on.

"So most of the time, it's oddly mechanical."

The film hit screens in 2002 (Searchlight Pictures)

He continued: "It's a dance, like, you choreograph it for a camera. It's one of those like a fight scene, you gotta choreograph those things and I always have tried.”

He revealed that Aniston also suggested placing a pillow between the two of them in order to make things a bit easier to navigate.

He explained: “That was just pre-emptive and used generally always when actually in a horizontal place in that movie. I think that was actually a Jennifer suggestion, she was very kind to suggest it before we began.”

He recounted her decision, saying: “She was like, ‘I'm putting a pillow here.’"