Before filming sex scenes with Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes reportedly had to calm her anxiety.

“I wasn’t at all comfortable,” she said to reporters at the Cannes press conference for We Own the Night, which features a hot sex scene with Phoenix, which is her first.

“They were very sweet,” she claimed, “and they poured me a vodka and orange juice and then I was fine.”

“I’m very professional and I don’t usually drink on the job but that morning I had to have something. It was my first sex scene and thank God James Gray was directing it. He did it at the end of the shoot, so it was the last day and I was really, really comfortable with these clowns,” she said, referring to Phoenix and Gray.

“My boob is still my boob,” Mendes remarked when asked whether it helped to believe it was her character and not her up there. “Wow, that sounded really stupid,” she said after a little pause.

She said of working with Phoenix, who fidgeted during the press conference and attempted to smoke a cigarette at one point, “It’s kind of like working with a puppy dog or a two-year-old. When you have its attention, it s really cute, but otherwise…”

Phoenix rolled his eyes when the actress called her co-star “one of the greatest actors of my generation,” presumably because he thought Andy Samberg was better deserving of the title.

This, my lovelies, is an excellent example of what is known as a “backhanded compliment” which is used by moms all over the world.