LOVE ACTUALLY star Bill Nighy hates his sex scenes, because he feels the onscreen intimacy puts him at an instant disadvantage when he meets women.

The 55-year-old British actor is left exhausted and vulnerable after shooting love scenes, and he is aghast that millions of viewers have seen his naked body.

Nighy says, "No one would not find it excruciating. It is unsettling when you're having a conversation with someone of the opposite sex and they have this unusual advantage over you, in that they've seen your bare bottom going up and down, and as long as you live you'll probably never sees theirs.

"So it makes you slightly uneasy. I once spent three days in the studio just 'doing sex'. I came out, sat on a low wall and when my driver pulled up, I said, 'Will you give me a hand?' I was knackered.

"I suppose there's someone out there for whom it's the perfect erotic experience. But you try it.

"You go into a room where there are half a dozen other people, mostly men.

"You lie down and simulate the tender exchange we know as love-making (or some wild version of it) with noises, while make-up dodges in and out with a damp sponge to do your bum.

"You've got to use certain parts of your body to obscure other bits of the female's body. So you end up in impossible positions. And then they say, 'Make love.'"

19/06/2005 10:41