Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Sony / Netflix, 2022
Connie Reid marries wealthy Nottingham colliery owner Sir Clifford Chatterley who returns from the Great War in a wheelchair. Connie is loyal but drawn to handsome Oliver Mellors, the plain-spoken former miner her husband has engaged as his game-keeper. They embark upon a physical affair but are discovered and betrayed by the nurse. Connie, now carrying Oliver’s child, must choose between a pampered but joyless existence with her husband or an uncertain future with the man she has come to love.
Directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (Mustang, Rabbit) with cast including Emma Corrin (The Crown, Pennyworth), Jack O’Connell (The North Water, Little Fish) and Matthew Duckett (A Confession).
Intimacy Coordinator
Ita O’Brien for Intimacy On Set
“Jack O’Connell has called intimacy coordinators “necessary” after working with one for the first time in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and said that “in hindsight,” he wishes there was one on the set of his teen drama series, Skins… Full‑frontal nudity was required of the actor and his costar, and O’Connell said that such scenes were only possible thanks to the help of “fantastic” intimacy coordinator and movement director Ita O’Brien…’I think that it is necessary to have someone who’s officially appointed to oversee that everyone is comfortable, I think it is vital.”
Insider, 4 December 2022
“So we worked with Ita O’Brien, she’s an intimacy coordinator… It was very playful. It’s very amusing and all the weirdness, and the awkwardness of the situation is just taken care of… You make the work so much better because you’re not trying to rush something, you’re not trying to hide the elephant in the room… it felt so natural that it was kind of like eroticism was there. They were very comfortable with each other. We spent the time we needed and it just felt real.” (Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre)
A.Frame, 1 December 2022
“You shouldn’t do intimacy scenes without a coordinator… We worked with an amazing intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who also did Normal People and that’s something that the industry has really woken up to.” (Emma Corrin)
Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, BBC Radio 2, 10 November 2022
“the gold-standard intimacy co-ordinator Ita O’Brien”
The Times, 26 November 2022
