On a new episode of “The Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham,” actor Blair Underwood discussed filming explicit polyamorous scenes for his latest TV project, “Three Women.” Based on the book of the same name by Lisa Taddeo, “Three Women” debuts September 13 on Starz and features Shailene Woodley, Betty Gilpin, DeWanda Wise, and Gabrielle Creevy.
“There are these three women — and Shailene is four, four women. She’s the reporter. You mentioned Lisa Taddeo’s book, she would be the Lisa Toddeo character who’s interviewing these three women. I play the husband of Sloan, played by Dewanda Wise, and it’s really interesting,” Blair explained.
He continued, “I mean, I really — this was harder to say yes to than anything I’ve ever done. It’s sexually explicit. There are things I’m doing on camera I’ve never done before. I say, what we did on this show made whatever I did on ‘Sex and the City’ years ago look like child’s play.”
Blair also said executive producers Lauren Eason and Lisa Taddeo made him feel safe on set throughout these scenes.
“I will tell you that this project was 95% all-female driven,” he added.”All of the directors were female, I think almost all of the writers were female, and our producing team [was] female.”
Describing the show’s plot, Blair said, “Our relationship is interesting because Sloan — that’s my wife, my character’s name is Richard — she’s 30-something years old, so she’s much younger. She’s very fluid. She loves having sex and relationships with men and women. We would call them swingers back in the day, they’re now called polyamorous. But the one rule Richard has is, you can be with whoever you want to be, but I have to watch and/or be a part of it. Get involved, if I so choose. But that’s up to me, and anything outside that is a betrayal.”
Stream Blair Underwood’s full interview with Jess Cagle and Julia Cunningham on Radio Andy (Ch. 102) on the SiriusXM app.