Simone Ashley explains how snails and Sex Education scenes prepared her for Bridgerton

Simone Ashley has opened up about the sex intimacy workshops she went through for Sex Education, and how they prepared her for Bridgerton.

The actor initially played popular student Olivia in Netflix’s teen drama before she was cast as Kate Sharma in Bridgerton season two. She announced her exit from Sex Education earlier this year.

In a recent interview on The Envelope podcast, Ashley detailed some of the lessons she learned from onset sex intimacy classes, which included looking “to how snails mate”.

“It was the most embarrassing or the most vulnerable, but it was a safe, intimate space,” the actor said.

“We explored the movement of different animals to kind of portray different paces or different sexualities or how sensual something could be.”

She continued: “For example, we look to how snails mate, and when snails mate, they actually produce a plasma that intertwines. So if it was a really sensual, slow kind of scene, we’d be like, oh, it’s like the snail. And it’s super like the plasma, like falling like honey.”

Ashley added that they would also look to “how dogs mate or chimpanzees mate”.

“It’s very like fast-paced and a different kind of style. So this kind of scene, we’re going to make it very funny and quirky and just like silly and like, let’s think of like, this animal,” she explained.

“So we would kind of focus on the other things around and then treat it like a dance and make it very character-driven.”

She added: “I think it just gave us all, like, the practice and experience of how to be professional on a set like that. And I definitely found that within Bridgerton.”

In a previous interview, Bridgerton’s intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot revealed that Ashley and co-star Jonathan Bailey helped choreograph their own sex scene.

Bridgerton and Sex Education are both available to watch now on Netflix.