News & Press

BY ADRIENNE WESTENFELD

You may not know Ita O’Brien’s name, but if you’re at all in the loop about prestige television, you know her work. O’Brien is a pioneer in the emerging field of intimacy coordinators, a new category of Hollywood professionals who work on film and television sets to choreograph simulated sex between actors. Yet this challenging and necessary work is so much more than choreography—it’s also a constant negotiation of consent and communication, with intimacy coordinators balancing the safety of performers alongside the vision of writers and directors. In the wake of the #MeToo movement and Hollywood’s continuing reckoning with rampant sexual misconduct, intimacy coordinators have become a fixture on film and television sets, yet O’Brien argues that the role has yet to reach a necessary point of saturation in the industry, with a long road still ahead in the way of standardizing how we keep actors safe.

O’Brien has lent her talents to projects including Normal People, The Great, Watchmen, Sex Education, and most recently, I May Destroy You, where she faced one of her most provocative and boundary-shattering assignments yet. With Chewing Gum genius Michaela Coel spearheading the project as writer, director, and star, the show centers on Arabella, a gregarious young writer in London who must question her reality and rebuild her life after she is drugged and sexually assaulted. Inspired by Coel’s own experience of suffering a sexual assault after her drink was spiked, I May Destroy You threads a breathtaking needle in depicting the messy, non-binary nature of consent, as well as in showcasing sexual encounters not often seen on television: an assault involving two men, an assault involving the removal of a condom mid-intercourse, and period sex, just to name a few. O’Brien was instrumental in bringing these scenes to life, working closely with Coel and other performers to fully and safely realize what existed on the page.

By Steve Holden

Sex on TV is changing, with series like I May Destroy You, Normal People and Sex Education showing an authentic – and sometimes uncomfortable – version of intimacy on screen.

Ita O’Brien choreographed the sex on all three shows – working on scenes depicting sex that was at times funny, touching, awkward and abusive.

The intimacy co-ordinator spoke to Radio 1 Newsbeat about what goes on behind the scenes and how filming sex might work on a socially-distanced set.

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BY SUSANNAH ALEXANDER

Normal People star Daisy Edgar-Jones has revealed that she and co-star Paul Mescal were very comfortable filming intimate scenes together for the drama because their work with an intimacy coordinator made them feel “free”.

Daisy and Paul’s characters – Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron – share a turbulent relationship in the BBC / Hulu co-production and the actors had to film a number of sex scenes together.

Daisy has told Vanity Fair that she and her co-star worked closely with Ita O’Brien, who is an expert in working on intimate scenes, and said that she feels more shows would benefit from hiring somebody like her.

“It was an amazing process. I can’t believe that it’s not been the norm for a very long time because it feels like I don’t know how else you would go about doing those scenes,” she said. “They are integral to telling the story of a relationship between two people as they grow up. The physical side of things is an incredibly important part of that.”

She added that she and Paul worked with Ita to determine what they were each comfortable with doing and said that this had made them feel “more free” when it came to acting out the love scenes.

“We discussed at length with her what exactly we were trying to communicate with each moment,” she said. “We would discuss what each other was comfortable with day to day so you never felt like you were going to overstep anybody’s boundaries. Weirdly, we were kind of more free, because of the structure that was put in place.

“Strangely, those scenes were some of the least challenging once you kind of got the first few under your belt. You knew exactly what you were doing… so there wasn’t much room for nuance.”

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BY ENDA BOWE

“One of the things that’s pretty powerful about that scene is there’s an element of asking for protection in that moment,” she said. “I don’t think often you see lovemaking scenes with those elements, because I think for some reason we feel that that would break the moment or take away from the raciness of it. But it really adds to it, because it’s truthful to what an actual first-time relationship should be like when it comes to Connell making sure Marianne is safe. But also that Marianne feels she’s able to ask for protection and not feel embarrassed by that.”

Intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien worked closely with the actors to make sure that they felt just as comfortable, while also ensuring that their movements looked truthful.

“Ita’s really good at making sure that everybody understands what’s going to happen and feels good about it,” explained Abrahamson. “You have the two actors stand and talk to each other and say what they feel comfortable with [touch-wise].”

Abrahamson said that O’Brien also helped coordinate movements so that, for example, while the actors might look as though their bodies were pressed against each other, they were actually positioning themselves in a certain way to cheat that closeness, or being separated by some material. “There’s all these varieties of covering so that everything that’s off camera is covered,” said Abrahamson. “It’s lots of planning and discussion, but what it means in the end is that everybody feels comfortable.”

Extensive rehearsals involved not only the actors and the intimacy coordinator, but also everyone else who would be on set the day of filming, including the cinematographer and script supervisor. They rehearsed every element of filming the scene, from blocking to camera angles to who would cover the actors with clothing once Abrahamson called “cut.” “All these really simple things help make things go calmly so there’s no rushing around on the day,” he explained. ”So if you’re going to have nakedness on a wide shot, how do you do it to make sure that everyone is comfortable…and then with each sort of setup, you say, ‘Well, on that one, people can wear shorts…or everything can be covered because all you need to see are the faces. You’re basically making a strategy for the day.”

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BY JASMINE TING

Those scenes make romantic movies what they are. But with a global pandemic keeping most people from making any direct physical contact, those potentially iconic moments might not even make it into future movie and TV scripts, which is a total shame. Filmmakers, showrunners, writers, and the whole crew will have to make major changes. Basically, it’s complicated. We talked to some experts about what it could look like.

“It’s not about writing out the romantic journeys of their characters, but it is about considering that intimate arc,” says Ita O’Brien, a professional intimacy coordinator. Basically, they’re going to have to think twice about everything. O’Brien has choreographed scenes for HBO’s new series I May Destroy You, and hit shows Sex Education, and Normal People. If you’ve seen Normal People, it’s pretty hard to believe the very intense and very realistic sex scenes aren’t real. To some extent, they make the entire show. So yeah, Ita, and the people who work in show business alongside her, would know a thing or two about the importance of those scenes.

…

O’Brien says one of the possible tactics productions could use is to write scenes in a way that characters could maintain that romantic and sexual tension, while also keeping a safe social distance.

O’Brien says one way that could work is by stopping the scene right before things get ~saucy~, like they used to do in the 1950s. Back then—with actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn—sex scenes were still such a scandalous thing in Hollywood. So the actors would get as close as they possibly could to each other, maybe share a kiss, and then right before they got it on, the camera would pan over to a fireplace (to symbolize the seriously hot sex they’re having, duh), or the screen would just fade to black.

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By Michael Pickard

​The project also saw Wiener work with intimacy coordinators for the first time, with Ita O’Brien and Kate Lush overseeing choreography of the numerous sex and nude scenes that take place.

“There’s a lot of sex in the book; it’s very necessary to how New London society works,” Wiener says. “I had never worked with an intimacy coordinator before. I didn’t know if it was necessary or really what they do, but it made all the difference. Kate and Ita gave our actors such confidence, command and ownership of the experience of being vulnerable. You’re exposed, and they just embraced it.

“The show is not graphic but there are a lot of bodies. Sex is a part of the show. But I had no idea how valuable they would be and how they made it a safe thing to talk about. They created an atmosphere of respect. It was really liberating for the actors, and certainly liberating for the filmmakers because we felt protected. Now, I couldn’t ever imagine working without an intimacy coordinator. Everyone should.”

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By Wendy Ide

​The 12-part series was divided between two directors: Lenny Abrahamson took the first six episodes and Hettie Macdonald helmed the second tranche. Edgar-Jones pays tribute to the harmony of approach brought by two filmmakers she describes as “actor directors”.

Perhaps equally important, however, given the number of sex scenes and the weight that was placed on the sexual dynamic as a means to explore the broader relationship, was the involvement of intimacy co-ordinator Ita O’Brien, whose input Edgar-Jones calls “invaluable”.

“I really cannot believe that’s a new thing,” she says. “I hope it becomes the norm. I know if I were ever to do a scene like that again, I wouldn’t do one without having somebody there to look after not just the actors, but also the directors and all the people who are on set. It’s important they don’t feel like they’re ever taking advantage of anyone or putting anyone out of their comfort zone.”

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By Jackson McHenry

What was it like to film Kwame’s assault? I know you all worked with an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who also worked on Normal People. The scene has to make really clear the distinctions between what starts as consensual and what becomes very clearly an assault.

It was obviously intense but also kind of hilarious. Ita O’Brien’s hilarious and hands on. She’s really into using animals as examples. She’ll be showing you an example of a bonobo having sex or a video of cats or dogs having sex and will be like, “In this part of the scene, you’re a bonobo, and then in this part, you’re a horse.” It’s one of those moments where you take a step out of your consciousness and go, “Wow, is this really a job?”

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By Eleanor Stanford

​What was it like working with the show’s intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien?

She makes any of those scenes so chill and safe. The example she sets and the practices she keeps is what makes those scenes feel real.

I did a show awhile ago called “Press,” and Charlotte Riley and I had some sex scenes in that, and we obviously didn’t have an intimacy coordinator. It was one of my first jobs of that level onscreen.

She’d already had an amazing career, so she had the experience to get us to discuss it, ask me what I thought. But if it was the other way around, or if neither of us had had that experience, it’s fully the blind leading the blind in a situation that’s incredibly dangerous and intimate.

It’s part of a language of “I May Destroy You,” that sexuality and that physicality. And Michaela is switched on, so she wants the actors on her show to feel safe.

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By Tanya Sweeney

Even before #MeToo brought some of these stories to light, movement director Ita O’Brien had been creating an on-set intimacy guide. After working with actors on movement workshops, she noted that many of them felt vulnerable, unsure and compromised while filming sex scenes.

After working on her own project exploring the dynamic of sexual abuse, entitled Does My Sex Offend You? she realised that something had to change.

“I started my project in 2015 and was looking at how do we keep actors safe and what practices needed to be put in place,” she reveals. “When the Weinstein thing happened [as a number of women came forward to highlight instances of harassment at the hands of movie producer Harvey Weinstein], I was ready to say to directors, ‘here are the guidelines. This will give you a professional structure in order to do intimate content in a professional way’.”

With directors and producers keen on fostering a safer workspace, O’Brien soon found herself hired as an on-set intimacy co-ordinator. After “choreographing” the sex scenes on Gentleman Jack, Watchmen and Netflix’s Sex Education, O’Brien recently worked on Normal People, the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, along with director Lenny Abrahamson.

“I can’t imagine doing things like that without Ita,” its star Edgar-Jones recently said. “There was a sense with Ita in charge of the physical stuff, that all we had to worry about were the story beats, and doing the writing justice. Then, it becomes like a job. You’re such good friends with the crew that you do a scene like that, then you break for lunch. It’s a bit odd.”

With a mum from Cookstown in Co Tyrone and a dad from Clonmel in Co Tipperary, O’Brien laughs when I ask about how a nice Catholic girl like herself has wound up on film sets, essentially showing actors how to simulate sex.

Yet she takes her work very seriously, and is passionate about getting the scenes right. O’Brien likens her work, in a way, to that of a stunt co-ordinator, or dance choreographer. Her job is to serve the director’s vision, while also advocating for the welfare of the actors involved in the scenes.

“You wouldn’t say the stunt co-ordinator is there to make the actors safe – you would say the stunt co-ordinator is there to give you really exciting, convincing, full-on fight scenes that will have people on the edge of their seats,” O’Brien explains. “You’re putting in techniques that keep your actors safe, which will let them act their socks off and create the best intimate content that they can.”

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Deadline: Paul Mescal, Daisy Edgar-Jones & Lenny Abrahamson On The Magic Of Smash Hit ‘Normal People’ & Season 2: “I Need Them To Be Together”

By Antonia Blyth

​Guiney and Abrahamson also knew that the intense, very intimate scenes were key, and they were aware of the need to protect everybody involved. So, an intimacy coordinator was brought in. “We had this wonderful person,” Guiney says. “A woman called Ita O’Brien, who, with Lenny and Daisy and Paul, and with the DP Suzi Lavelle, worked very closely together to create an atmosphere so that the actors could actually cease to worry about the choreography of those scenes, and could actually act. Because we had such young actors, we just wanted to make sure that they were as comfortable and as protected as possible, had as much agency in how those scenes were done and didn’t feel any pressure. Ita just creates a very—to use that well-worn phrase—safe space. But it is a really safe space where really good work can happen.”

“I wouldn’t ever sign on to a job now where sex is required without an intimacy coordinator,” Mescal says, “because I can’t imagine how you would do it.”

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ESQ: What does the process of working with an intimacy coordinator look like?

PE: I honestly cannot imagine a world where you do scenes that demand this level of intimacy without an intimacy coordinator. To me, it’s insane. You would never film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon without someone on set whose job it is to make sure you don’t cut someone’s head off. I think intimacy coordinators are crucial in that same way. Ita O’Brien was our intimacy coordinator; we had some sessions with her long before we started filming. Those sessions were all about us being clear with what we were comfortable doing and what we weren’t comfortable doing. We talked about how we could navigate our individual safe zones emotionally, mentally, and physically in order to create a scene that does justice to what’s written on the page. Ita is all about empowering, safeguarding, and liberating performers. It felt like a liberated, freeing environment to do what is on the surface a very demanding task for an actor.

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By Rosie Humphrey

Working behind the scenes on achieving this realism is Ita O’Brien, an intimacy co-ordinator who recently worked on the similarly-acclaimed Normal People. Over Zoom she broke down what made the scene so very powerful and disruptive. “When you look for intimate scenes that feature menstruation, I haven’t found any where you can actually see the journey through to intercourse, with all the paraphernalia, the pads, the tampons and the clot being acted out,” Ita says. “I have to thank Michaela for writing this for all the women in the world. What I love about the scene is that it’s not a big deal. She mentions it, it’s not sensationalised, it’s not horrific. In fact, the character of Biagio, his curiosity and interest is just so ground-breaking.”

The scene was not just groundbreaking or educational for audiences either. “In my preparation with Marouane, who plays Biago, he was asking ‘really, really does this happen?’, and we were having a laugh about it”, says Ita. “I said to Marouane, who is just the most beautiful soul, the madness is that half of the population in the world spend on average 40 years of their lives menstruating. That’s roughly 480 weeks in the lives of every person who menstruates and of course, that’s going to include our love-making and our sexual expression within some of those 480 weeks — and when have we seen that on screen?”

Ita’s right. With options ranging from the scene in Superbad, which shows Jonah Hill’s character repeatedly gagging after finding period blood on his trousers, to the “heavy flow and a wide-set vagina” classic in Mean Girls, relatable period-sex content is hard to come by. This is why, as Ita explains, “it was very clearly written that, as the pants are coming off, Michaela wanted the pad to be seen. And then, as she’s sat on the toilet, she’s seen putting the pad in [her pants], so again all of that paraphernalia that women go through is written as part of the fabric of Arabella’s everyday life and then in her intimate content. That is so important.”

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By Monica Castillo

Since the show focuses on issues around consent, what was it like preparing for intimate scenes on set? Were there intimacy coordinators involved?

I prefer not to act out sexual scenes, so I had a body double in that scene — a very great body double, because some people think it was me. So I certainly didn’t act out any of that, but there was an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, and she was really great. It was a very respectful environment. Only the people involved were there. Though I wasn’t allowed in the room at that time, I did get to know what was going on. I was told what was going to go on, as it was my character who was going to be portrayed. It was a very comfortable and safe space.

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The actor, 30, said he had been stripping off on screen for a long time, including, aged 17, in Channel 4 drama Skins.

Having an intimacy coordinator oversee sex scenes on The Great, a new TV miniseries about Catherine The Great, was a refreshing development, he said.

“This is the first job I’ve had that on and it’s a very positive change in the industry. It’s almost like having a stunt coordinator,” Hoult told GQ Hype.

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BY LESLEY GOLDBERG

Sex Education was the first Netflix show to use an intimacy coordinator (Ita O’Brien). How did that help you play out scenes in which Otis becomes more comfortable with masturbation and his girlfriend, Ola (Patricia Allison)?

It was helpful to have someone to talk to if you don’t feel comfortable or if you don’t necessarily want to bring something up or you’re embarrassed. A lot of my scenes were me, by myself. For my five-minute masturbating scene, I didn’t actually feel like I needed to work with her because I had a good idea of how that might play out. (Laughs.) But for scenes with Patricia — we met at the end of season one, but we didn’t know each other before then — Ita helped us find our boundaries.

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By Natalie Jarvey

​Nailing those scenes was crucial given how much Marianne and Connell’s relationship is grounded in sex. To create the right environment, production brought in intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien. Once both actors were comfortable, Abrahamson says he tried to shoot the sex scenes like he would any other scene. “If anything, what’s radical about Normal People is that they move from conversation to lovemaking in a way which doesn’t involve a split stylistically,” he says. “I’m primarily interested in their faces. I’m primarily interested in tracking their emotions.”

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