“Why This Bold Actor Is Owning Controversial Real-Life Sex Scenes—and What Her Zodiac Sign Has to Do With It”
Added on October 3, 2025 inCelebrity News Cards
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Ever wonder what it’s like to stir up a hornet’s nest by simply showing up on screen? Well, Margo Stilley sure found out the hard way when she dropped jaws and made waves in Michael Winterbottom’s 2004 flick, 9 Songs. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill love story — oh no — the film famously blurred the line between acting and reality with actual unsimulated sex scenes, turning innocent movie-watching into an eyebrow-raising experience. Now, with Mars shaking things up in the cosmos today, bringing that signature push-pull energy, isn’t it fitting that Margo herself is standing tall and proud of her bold performance despite the storm of criticism she weathered? After all, in a world obsessed with playing it safe, sometimes you gotta roll the dice and just own it — just like she did. LEARN MORE
An actress who starred in a controversial film which featured unsimulated sex scenes said she was ‘proud’ of her performance, despite the criticism she received.
Margo Stilley, 42, managed to ruffle more than a few feathers when she starred in the 2004 movie 9 Songs, which was directed by Michael Winterbottom.
The erotic art film, starring the US actress and Brit star Kieran O’Brien, documents the intense relationship of a couple who meet at the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
But the flick is more about lovemaking than motorbikes, as Stilley and O’Brien spend the majority of it rolling around the sheets.
There are a ton of saucy scenes in 9 Songs – and although most actors feign fornication on a movie set, these two got down and dirty for real.
The decision to have unsimulated sex scenes in the film proved to be a controversial one, as Winterbottom’s project infamously holds the title of the most sexually explicit mainstream film.
Stilley was just 21 at the time of the release and due to the raunchy contents of 9 Songs, she initially asked to be identified only as ‘Lisa’ (her character’s name) instead.
But she somewhat shot herself in the foot by trying to remain anonymous, as media outlets scrambled to identify her.
Stilley told The Telegraph in a 2008 interview: “Newspapers were running competitions with pictures of me, saying, ‘Who’s this girl?’
“They were offering rewards to readers if they found out who I was. It was ridiculous.”
The 42-year-old star said she was ‘proud’ of 9 Songs despite the frosty reception it received (David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
In an earlier interview, Stilley also spoke out in defence of 9 Songs and her unsimulated sex scenes – and revealed that she received quite an ‘angry’ reception from film fans upon its release.
“People were really angry with me,” she told the Irish Independent in 2008. “When I did press conferences, people would shout abuse at me. You’d think I invented sex!
“I got told I was a wh**e and a s**t and ‘how could I do it’. And ‘what kind of role model did I think I was giving young women?’ I mean, please…
“I didn’t invent sex! There’s a huge sex industry out there that’s worth billions.
“People ask me if I felt that Michael Winterbottom took advantage of me because I hadn’t acted before, but they forget that I developed the character.
The erotic art film featured a series of unsimulated sex scenes (Revolution Films)
Stilley then said: “I am not at all like my character Lisa, and I was genuinely shocked by the reaction to the film and, particularly, to my role in it.
“It was a film about love and sex. It wasn’t porn. I mean, I had sex with my boyfriend last night, and that wasn’t porn.
“It was just hot sex! 9 Songs was a real film about love and sex, and I wanted to do that film and I am proud of it.”
And who can argue with that, eh?
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