Although the scene where Alma describes her orgy was in the screenplay, Andersson said in 1977 that Bergman had been advised to remove it from the film. She insisted that it be shot, volunteering to alter dialogue she felt was too obviously written by a man. The scene took two hours to shoot, using close-ups of Ullmann and Andersson in single takes. Andersson later said that while she thought some of her performances in films such as "Wild Strawberries" were "corny", she was proud of her work in "Persona". Ullmann described her response shots as an unprepared, natural reaction to the story's erotic nature.