DOING LOVE SCENES NO LABOR OF LOVE\Crews, lighting, awkward moments leave actors a bit less than\amorous.

Byline: Luaine Lee Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Everybody who has ever done one will tell you that those sizzling love scenes in the movies are agonizing to execute.

The crew is standing around watching, the lights are hot, and each actor must be constantly vigilant about whether his shadow is falling on the wrong place or if he's looking awkward and ungainly.

Actors never know how the director will cut the scene, so a great deal of trust has to be part of the bargain.

It can be especially difficult if you're married and must watch your spouse enact love scenes with somebody else.

Amy Madigan ("Field of Dreams," "Roe vs. Wade") said it's not her favorite pastime watching her husband, Ed Harris, in a cinematic clinch.

Harris - the stalwart guy from "Apollo 13" and "The Abyss," claims he doesn't remember his torrid love scenes, though he certainly steamed up Barbara Hershey for "Paris Trout" and Madeleine Stowe in "China Moon."

Harris currently is starring in "Eye for an Eye" and "Nixon," neither of which locks him in any clinging clinches.

"When he's doing a love scene I don't go to the set that day and decide to visit," said Madigan.

"He's done a number of (those) scenes. I understand what it is. I think it's something you have to remove yourself from. There are 45 people in the room standing 2 feet from the person, too. You can't pretend it's not there, but you don't have to pay a great deal of attention to it. Of course, there is this real thing. Somebody actually IS kissing someone, actually touching them. You kind of can fall in love with somebody in some way, but it's OK."

Madigan hasn't performed that many love scenes in her career. Even in her latest, "Riders of the Purple Sage," premiering on TNT on Jan. 21, she doesn't linger in the passionate embrace of her co-star. That's a little odd, because this time her co-star is Harris.

They do exchange one tender kiss at the end, but there's more going on here than tangles in the sheets.

Cinema heartthrob Antonio Banderas said he doesn't enjoy doing love scenes for the camera. "It's not such a comfortable thing to do because there are 40 people around you. How can you do that?"

Jeff Bridges, who has romanced co-stars Jane Fonda, Sally Field and Glenn Close on screen, said part of the problem is that you don't know the person you're supposed to be intimate with.

"A lot of the time you'll be shown in the first day of work and you've got to do some nude love scenes with someone who's supposed to be your wife and you've never met her before. You don't know quite how to give suggestions or what that person's ego's gonna be like. You don't want to step on them or anything like that."

Meg Ryan disagrees. "It's easier to do love scenes with someone you don't know," she said. As to watching her husband, Dennis Quaid, do a love scene, Ryan said, "I can't watch him making love to another woman. I can't watch a love scene between us, either."

Quaid, who plays the romantic rascal like no other, thinks love scenes are arduous. "They're never romantic. They're all about camera angles, protecting the other person. ... It's not that they would judge you, you would judge yourself."

Nancy Travis ("Three Men and a Little Lady," TV's "Almost Perfect") said, "I like to think you can fake (love scenes) but it helps if you have somebody who's a gentleman and wants to have fun and make it look as natural as possible."

It helps if you like your co-star, said Nicolas Cage. He is fond of both Laura Dern, with whom he tussled in "Wild at Heart," and Elisabeth Shue, his co-star in "Leaving Las Vegas."

"It's that moment when you can look into their eyes and smell their perfume and not act - just feel. And as long as you don't take it home with you at the end of the day, you're OK. Doing love scenes is unpleasant with someone you don't like."

Catherine Deneuve has certainly had her share of romantic film entanglements in such movies as "Hustle" and "Bell de Jour." But it's not easy for her, either.

"Everybody's a little shy and worried about it, more than you would think. So the technical things and technical problems ... you don't live what you see on screen."

Harrison Ford figures it's all in a day's work. "I don't find love scenes any more embarrassing than any other kind of scenes. I don't. I don't find it difficult. It's storytelling. I feel the same way about a love scene as I do any other scene."

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Photo (1) "I can't watch him making love to another woman," says Meg Ryan, pictured in a scene with her husband, Dennis Quaid, from "Flesh and Bone." "I can't watch a love scene between us, either." (2) Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage created some memorable love scenes in "Wild at Heart." It helps if you like your co-star, Cage says. (3) Antonio Banderas, in a cinematic clinch with Winona Ryder in "The House of the Spirits," said he doesn't enjoy doing love scenes for the camera. "It's not such a comfortable thing to do because there are 40 people around you," he says.