The Boys star Erin Moriarty gets candid about the medical crisis she faced while filming a sex scene. In a recent interview, the actress opened up about the experience and how she tackled the ordeal. Moriarty played Starlight in the popular superhero satire, which recently concluded its series finale in May 2026.
Erin Moriarty filmed The Boys sex scene while suffering a severe staph infection
Erin Moriarty recently appeared on the MesSy podcast, where she opened up about battling with a staph infection while filming Starlight and Hughie’s first sex scene in The Boys. Speaking with hosts Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Moriarty shared how she got through the scene with costar Jack Quaid.
“You’re taught and conditioned, especially when you start really young as an actress, to say yes to everything and to swallow your needs,” Moriarty began. “I didn’t mind it. I liked it. My identifier prior to going through this autoimmune illness was that I would suffer for my art. I would transcend whatever physical ailments I was going through.”
The actress then shared, “This is one of many examples where I was so run down that I developed a really, really, really bad staph infection.” She explained, “Because what I didn’t know is that staph infections- anyone can develop them. Staph is on our skin at all times. But when you’re really run down, they can happen. And it got really bad. Like, really, really bad. And I couldn’t move my right arm.”
Moriarty went on to recall how the production team would react to the medical crisis. “I remember saying, ‘I have the staph infection going on. You don’t understand. It’s really bad. I’m in total hell.’ And then people would hear me, but no one was really listening,” she said. “And then I would show them the infection, and they would go, ‘Oh my god. You need to go to the ER right now!’ And I was like, but I told you. But they need to see it.”
Moriarty shared that she completed the night shoot and finished filming the scene to prove that she was “a good sport and a good player”, despite the pain she was experiencing.
