The press conference for Hysteria, which chronicles the invention of the vibrator, elicited giggles, guffaws, awkward pauses and perhaps even a gleeful sense of empowerment for many of the women in the room. Director Tanya Wexler sounded raspy, and she noted the irony in the fact that the director of a film about female empowerment had lost her voice. “What were you doing down there?” was a common inquiry of actors Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce, who play the doctors who must pleasure women to relieve them of their “hysteria.” Dancy’s curt answer: “Acting.” Pryce revealed that he got a stress injury in his hand and lost the skin on a finger from all of the rubbing, and that he wasn’t touching an actual woman but rather a “modesty sandbag.” Dancy also revealed he visited a sex museum in Shanghai in preparation for the role. “You really had to take their word [that the artifact was a sex toy]. You look at it and think, that’s just a rock.”
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