In the bathtub scene, Blake (
Colin Firth) is shown masturbating under the water. Director Anand Tucker addresses that scene thusly:
CS: One of the most surprising scenes I think, is Colin Firth in the bathtub. I don't want to say too much about it's very surprising if you know his body of work. Was that something from the original novel that he was aware of when he signed on?
Tucker: Yeah, that was a key moment in the book. When the book came out, it was quite shocking for it's honesty, and the fact that at the very moment when his dad was dying, he was having a wank thinking about the first time he had sex. It shocked a lot of people, but it was very honest. It was a key moment and summed up for me what the book was sort of about, that life, death, and sex, all these things are sort of messed up together in one big, big mess of... being a a [sic] human being is a really messy business basically. I thought it was really important to keep that, and I thought Colin was very brave to do it. I don't think it was easy. (laughs).
Read the entire interview here.