Sex Education Stars On Tired Teen Tropes, Penis Props, And Having 'The Talk' With Their Parents

On Netflix's Sex Education, 17-year-old Otis (Asa Butterfield) is your average lanky high schooler. Also co-dependent to be an outsider, also uncomfortable in his own skin to fit in, and also obsessed with The Cure to truly be depressed. However all of that unresolved anxiety and teenage ennui has manifested itself in an interesting way: Otis can't masturbate. This is especially awkward for Otis because his mom is a renowned sex therapist who loves to, well, therapize her son.


Although all of that meddling does have its benefits. As soon as faced with a lucrative organization proposition from the school's resident alt dream girl, Otis, despite his inexperience, starts to dole out sex and intimacy opinions to his classmates. What follows are very real, very earnest, and very healthy conversations about sex and intimacy, the kind we don’t often visualize in teen sex comedies.


MTV News chatted with Sex Education stars Asa Butterfield and Ncuti Gatwa about how the series subverts tired teen tropes, "the talk" they did — or didn’t have — with their own parents, and the set’s several distracting penis props.


MTV News: How are you pitched this series? What was the elevator pitch?


Asa Butterfield: The one-line pitch.


Ncuti Gatwa: How were you pitched this series?


Butterfield: I can't remember how they pitched it.


Gatwa: A new coming-of-age drama. I think that's how it was pitched to me.


Butterfield: A coming-of-awkward-age drama about sex.


MTV News: What was it about [creator] Laurie Nunn's scripts that really resonated with you both?


Gatwa: I had never read or seen anything like it before, and all of the characters are so different and diverse. They've got their niches they all fit into, like the classic boxes of teen dramas, yet they're all very layered and all very contradictory. Do you suggest what I mean? As an example [looking toward Butterfield], you are virgin, yet you are a sex wizard. So everyone's got their differences and niches.


Butterfield: It sets up these tropes and then subverts them very cleverly, and I think what's very nice, especially in a comedy, is to have these characters, which are very self-complex and have these things that are going that are very believable and aren't just there for the gags. Each person really has their own story to tell, and I think that doesn't happen very often in comedies. It struck that hard balance.


Ncuti Gatwa (left) and Asa Butterfield (right) in Netflix's Sex Education


MTV News: I really love how it subverts teenage tropes. I'm sure you both have read for a lot of teen roles. Are there any tropes you felt like this show did a really perfect job of addressing?


Butterfield: there really are a lot of perfect characters in this. We have Adam, who is, on the surface he's the bully, although even just while in the end of the opening episodes you visualize how layered he is, and why he's got his own struggles he's dealing with and his issues with his dad — and his large penis, which has become a very big hindrance for him. While in the series you visualize how his character develops, and why he discovers himself. It's very easy to play that character one-dimensionally, and Connor's [Swindells] done an extraordinary job of giving him a real vulnerability. Also, Emma [Mackey], who plays Maeve. Again, on the surface, she's seen as a bad girl, yet she's smart and she doesn't know where she sort-of fits in the world.


Gatwa: You visualize the reasons beyond her bluntness and harshness, it makes sense. Teenagers right now are supposed to be the most sexually advanced, I guess, because they've got the world wide web, social media, porn, and all these sort of things, however like, still, no matter who you are or where you are in the world or what time you are in the world, being a teenager is complex and it's awkward, and I feel like we're dealing with issues that haven't been dealt with before in terms of the conversations that we're having right now, like toxic masculinity and revenge porn. We're talking about all these things that we as a folks are just beginning to talk about now.


MTV News: Are there certain teen tropes that you're tired of seeing in media? Because Eric, as an example, could have been your usual gay best friend, yet he's so much more nuanced than that. I haven't seen anyone else like him on TV.


Gatwa: It flips the conversation of the classic coming-out story — it's like what occurs soon after. He is out, as is the only other gay at school, Anwar. They're both out, and they're both accepted in the school, and in Eric's case, he's only really bullied because he's just a dork, not because he's gay.


Butterfield: He's bullied because he once got a boner on stage.


Gatwa: So, yeah, we've taken these classic tropes and pushed them further. There really is a certain portrayal of the gay best friend, and the classic black best friend. Those are two tropes that I'm not tired of seeing, nevertheless I think we can do more. People have layers. We don't need to prepare characters so two-dimensional. I feel like in this show, everybody is very three-dimensional, even four-dimensional.


Gatwa stars as Eric Effoing, Otis's best friend


MTV News: That's a lot of dimensions. Do you feel like that's as the writers' room was pretty young?


Butterfield: I think that certainly had something to do it.


Gatwa: and also a lot of women.


Butterfield: along with a lot of female writers, which gives a different perspective, I think, and that's why there's so several astonishing female characters in this script. Aimee, especially in the initial episode, you think she is a little bit of an airhead, nevertheless then by the end of the series she has her own episode which reveals so much about her so you realize why she group kind of is the way she is and and the social pressures that have been put on her.


MTV News: I was particularly moved by Eric's scenes with his West African father. What made that relationship so special to you?


Gatwa: As an actor, I think it was just the passion between them. There's no denial that Eric's dad loves him unconditionally. He's just fully terrified for the world that Eric is about to inhabit, and it's a global that doesn't understand. He is an established West African man, so Western culture is foreign to him. I come from a African background, and I know that my parents routinely informed me, "You have to work harder, twice as hard as any of your peers to create it, or to be respected" and that's just the way it is.


It's shit. Folks are gonna look at you differently, and they're gonna treat you differently just based off how you appear, yet you just have to deal with it and also you just have to prove them wrong, you just have to work three times as hard. Eric's dad is just scared and worried for Eric that Eric isn't after the path that he would have followed. I used to dance a lot As soon as I was younger, and I know that there is a lot of decisions that I make that my parents are like, "Oh my God. He's gonna perish Yet the passion between that family member is just so special and apparent. We don't visualize a lot of African-British families on TV, so the representation is really critical to me. I know how critical of a character that Eric is and it also is going to be for so several people.


Eric and his father


MTV News: It's such a sex-positive show, which I think we need more of, right? From the very first scene, it establishes itself as a show where sex is a piece of everyday life for teens, for older people, for everybody. I think that's pretty refreshing.


Gatwa: My mum just texted as I got off the airport, being like, "Is this show OK for 11 year olds?" And I was like, technically no, there is a lot of graphic sex scenes in there, although at the same time, the messages that the show puts out are so positive. It's so inclusive. I can't visualize how that can negative for anybody to be able to see. I'm not recommending 11 year olds to watch this show, although I'm just saying that there is a lot of positive messages that comes out of it.


MTV News: I'm sure 11-year-old Otis saw worse. There really are penises all over his residence.


Butterfield: That residence. Wow. Just wow.


Gatwa: Just the trip down the stairs… you're seeing a lot.


Butterfield: The front door.


Gatwa: The front door. The doorknob. The doorknob is a real nob.


Butterfield: It's a penis.


MTV News: Was it like a game for you guys to find the penises on the set?


Butterfield: It was, nevertheless even at the end of filming, it seemed like, "Oh my God! I have been applying this salt and pepper shaker the complete time…"


Gatwa: And it's a penis.


Butterfield: It wasn't up until the end that I realized, "Oh my God, this is also a dick." Like, it's everywhere.


Gatwa: Everything was phallic.


Butterfield: I think my main go to one is, there's this chess set that we have, and case in point all of the pieces are lining the washroom upstairs, and so they must have designed it because it had been 3D printed. It's a chess set, although every piece is a differently shaped penis. And I was like, "This is amazing!"


Otis and his mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson), have an awkward conversation about masturbation


MTV News: Do you recall the opening time you discussed to your parents about sex?


Gatwa: My dad's a minister, so I've never had that conversation about sex with my parents. I think they still think that I think the stork comes with the bag and the baby.


Butterfield: I remember my mom attempting converse with me about masturbation and I may visualize it in her eyes she was about to pose a weird question, I was like, "Mum, what are you doing?" I can't remember what she mentioned, although it was something like, "You know what masturbation…" I was like, "Alright, I'm going, I'm out. Done." It's a hard conversation to have with your parents. It's hard for parents to have that conversation with their kids. I wouldn't wish to have that conversation with my child.


MTV News: The show could certainly spark some interesting, and crucial, conversations in the event you watch it with your family members.


Butterfield: Maybe not your grandparents.


MTV News: Well, if your grandparents are cool.


Butterfield: Depends. Actually, my grandma's pretty cool.


MTV News: Do your families watch things that you're in? Are you waiting for them to text you?


Butterfield: They typically do. And I haven't actually thought about that, about my grandma watching this show. And I'm just right now thinking of Episode 1, my wanking scene.


Gatwa: Grandma Butterfield is gonna be on that phone.