Richard Armitage Dishes On Steamy 'Obsession' Scenes & His Boyfriend

Netflix's new mini-series Obsession is the world's latest, well, obsession.

The erotic thriller starring Richard Armitage and Charlie Murphy follows the story of a man who falls madly in love with his soon-to-be daughter-in-law, and their relationship has devasting consequences.

In a new interview with The Standard, the 51-year-old British actor opened up about the show's steamy sex scenes that required an intimacy coordinator. One particular scene of Armitage getting frisky with a pillow has already gone viral.

"A part of me thinks if my mum were still alive I might be saying, ‘This one might not be for you’," he reflected, "but at the same time I think, it’s life, it’s the body. If we were sensationalizing it or making infidelity feel sexy and appealing – which I don’t think we are – we’re really trying not to do that, it’s a different thing… it’s about the sharp edges of the human condition I think.”

Obsession's sex scenes are risqué but vital to the story, and Armitage reveals that he and his castmates had to have some conversations with their respective partners. That's the moment in the interview where he mentions his male partner.

“We did talk about it," he said. "I reassured him that it was all going to be fine, and we were being well looked after. Charlie [Murphy] and I have met each other’s partners and gone for dinner."

This is a pretty casual coming-out moment for Armitage, as he has rarely publicly spoken about his sexuality or love life, though there are longstanding (unconfirmed) rumors that he and Lee Pace once dated. The only other hint fans had was in a 2020 interview with The Telegraph, where Armitage talked about having children. “I would need to do it in a way which was either through adoption or surrogacy, because of the nature of my relationship,” he said at the time. “I’d have to sit down very pragmatically and work it out.”

It's clear his privacy is important to him, as the headline of that article actually reads, "I felt like my parents wouldn't be proud of me any more if I was too open about my private life." It's unclear if/how that factored into Armitage sharing his sexuality with the world, and we still don't know how he identifies. Ultimately it doesn't matter, and we wish him the best.