News & Press

BY ANGELA LAW

The UK has produced two standout TV series in recent months: Sex Education (Netflix) and Normal People (BBC). Both follow a cast of teenagers as they navigate the many ups and downs of adulthood, and you would think that’s where the similarities end. While Sex Education uses tongue-in-cheek humour to tackle heavier issues like sexuality and gender binaries, Normal People depicts first love and mental health in a quieter way, where the power is felt fully in long stares and things left unsaid. But when I sat down to watch Normal People, the intimate sex scenes reminded me of Sex Education a lot, even though they are worlds apart in terms of their tone and pace.

Both shows deliver raw and honest depictions of sex across a spectrum of sexualities and desires, so naturally, it was a hot topic at the round-table interviews I attended for both series. When questioned about what it was like to film the huge number of sex scenes, there’s one person that both shows’ cast and crew credit for the believability: Ita O’Brien. An intimacy coordinator with a background in dancing, acting, and movement coaching, O’Brien has developed a set of guidelines to protect actors while filming sex scenes, and to ensure that networks are producing great intimate content. In both cases, the young actors said filming scenes under O’Brien’s guidance was empowering — after a long day of filming, they felt confident and like they’d completed an honest day’s work, despite the vulnerable positions the scenes put them in.

On the day that O’Brien and I caught up (in our respective homes during the UK’s novel coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown), it was the day before her daughter’s birthday. She started the interview by telling me all about the cake she planned to bake that evening, and what began as a scheduled 20-minute conversation evolved into almost two hours of chatting. Pretty quickly, it was obvious why O’Brien has been so successful in her business, pairing her extensive experience in the creative arts with her warm and empathetic personality. She is my favourite kind of person: a ballsy woman who’s tough but undoubtedly kind. We spoke at length about the film industry and how it has historically approached intimate content, how it’s evolved since the birth of Time’s Up in early 2018, and exactly what it means to be an intimacy coordinator on set.

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BY MICHELLE RUIZ

It was never a question for Lenny Abrahamson, who directed Normal People along with Hettie Macdonald, that in order to truly capture the novel, the onscreen sex would have to feel intensely realistic. “You can’t suddenly become coy and prim about the human body,” Abrahamson told Vogue. “You need it to feel like when they went from talking into making love, that the conversation hadn’t ended.”

But executing that erotic vision and navigating nudity with two young actors (Edgar-Jones is 21 and Mescal is 24) in their first major roles in a much-anticipated adaptation—and in an industry scarred by serial predators like Harvey Weinstein—meant Abrahamson approached sex scenes with a meticulous level of care. Moments like Marianne losing her virginity to Connell in his cramped bedroom or the couple fervently reuniting in her Dublin apartment may look completely natural, but were discussed and planned at length by Abrahamson, Edgar-Jones, Mescal, and intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien to ensure the actors were comfortable and consenting.

“If you go back a decade or more, it was all about the contract,” Abrahamson said of past nudity clauses established upfront, locking actors (often actresses) in before filming even started. But with the dawn of #MeToo exposing the sexual abuse and harassment endemic to Hollywood, Normal People is part of pioneering a new way to treat the sex scene.

By ROWENA HENLEY

As an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien is well versed in the art of sex as storytelling. As she explains via Zoom a few days after Normal People has landed on iPlayer, it’s her job to make sure the details provided by the writer and director are “honoured” in every intimate scene. Rather than rush through moments of sex or nudity for fear of embarrassment, O’Brien encourages actors and directors to take their time, to consider each touch, each subtle shift in tone, and to ask themselves how these moments can add to the narrative they’ve created elsewhere.

As well as offering creative support, intimacy coordinators provide practical guidance – they ensure the actors’ boundaries are respected. O’Brien begins each day by speaking to the director and actors about “agreement and consent.”

“We do that every single day because everybody is different every single day,” she tells me. “Even if [the actors have] worked with each other before, I always check in.” Although other aspects of her work will differ from project to project, the discussion around consent always comes first, O’Brien explains. It is the principle upon which her Intimacy on Set guidelines – the first of their kind in the UK – were built.

After this discussion, “I usually have the actors stand in close proximity, and have a hug,” O’Brien says. “That kind of icebreaker makes such a difference. People will instinctively always stand where it’s socially OK – they won’t break that. That’s where, as the intimacy coordinator, I’m very consciously bringing them closer together.” But where do they go from there?

I asked O’Brien to talk me through three intimate scenes she helped choreograph for Normal People. Below, she offers rare, behind-the-scenes insight into the sex scenes that absolutely everyone is talking (and thinking) about right now.

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By Rachel Handler

O’Brien kicked off the process of structuring the show’s intimate scenes quite early on. As the actors remember it, they’d only known each other for three or four days when O’Brien asked them to participate in an ice-breaking movement workshop. Mescal, 24, and Edgar-Jones, 21, remember the workshops as slightly mortifying. “We had to do a physical warm-up where we would inhabit animals, which is incredibly useful for the work, but my embarrassment threshold is quite low,” says Mescal. “I’m doing this in front of somebody who I was going to be working with for the next five months. I didn’t want Daisy to judge me or think that I was borderline insane.” Edgar-Jones laughs. “I was bent over because I was trying not to look at you.”

But both agree that the warm-ups were essential for creating a lighter mood and a deep sense of mutual trust that they kept up over the months of shooting. “Filming [sex scenes], you have to be able to have a giggle because it’s a strange situation to be in. You’re friends with all the crew. We’re all having lunch together. So you have to be able to laugh. And Ita just created an environment that was pressure-free,” Edgar-Jones says.

When considering what the sex scenes might look like, O’Brien took her initial cues from Rooney, who co-wrote the script with playwrights Alice Birch and Mark O’Rowe. “There was such a clear charting of the progression of their intimacy, and also the quality of the intimacy, both in the scenes with Marianne and Connell, and then the scenes with the other people they had sex with,” she says. Sometimes the script’s stage directions would be explicit, but sometimes they’d be more vague, something like, “They make love.” In those murkier cases, O’Brien would sit down and discuss the scenes with Abrahamson, Macdonald, Edgar-Jones, and Mescal to find the answer to an essential question: “What shape might this lovemaking take?”

In the scene – in which Marianne has sex for the first time – Connell puts on a condom and reiterates to Marianne that they can stop at any time.

He says: “If you want to stop or anything, we can obviously stop… If it hurts, or, anything, we can stop, it won’t be awkward. You can just say.”

After watching the scene – ideally not with their parents – people flocked to social media to shower praise on it:
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Much of the credit for this depiction must go to Ita O’Brien, an intimacy coordinator who also worked on Netflix’s hit comedy-drama Sex Education.

Speaking to LADbible about O’Brien’s role, Sex Education director Ben Taylor said: “The way she explained it is that if you have a fight scene on a show you have a fight coordinator, and if you have a dance scene in a show you have a choreographer, and why do we not approach intimacy scenes like that?

“That’s the role that she and her team fulfil, which they are there to help you do it really well, help you do it really safely and they take care of the cast and the crew before, during and after those scenes and hopefully take away some of the fear and anxiety that can come up around shooting sex scenes.”

Note: this article is no longer available on the original link: worldnewsnetwork.co.in/people-are-praising-a-sex-scene-in-bbc-drama-normal-people-ladbible/

By Lea Palmieri

​Helping them navigate the many intense scenes, especially for Mescal, a theater actor who finds himself in his first major TV role, was Ita O’Brien, an intimacy coordinator responsible for being a liaison between the actors and crew in order to make those ever-awkward sex scenes just a little less uncomfortable for everyone involved. “She’s definitely at the forefront of that as a functioning member of the filming community,” Mescal told me before describing what the process of working with her was like. “We rehearsed with Ita prior to filming so that we knew the structure when it came to working on set. At the start of the day when we’d be doing sex scenes, we would sit down with her and Lenny and just discuss the scene. Emotionally was a really important thing to Ita, so the center of the scene was the emotional intimacy between them. Then the physical act of the scene, what was physically happening between Connell and Marianne. Then we would block the scene and shoot it and all the while it was about Ita and Lenny and Hettie being attentive to what me and Daisy felt comfortable with. Ultimately I think that liberates us as actors, that we don’t feel self-conscious, we’ve discussed it and we feel safe and comfortable, and I think it allows the scenes to be quite powerful and moving.”

By Isabel Jones

Obviously, there’s a lot of sex and nudity in the show, which I know you’ve spoken to a bit. But what was the process of working on those scenes with Paul and an intimacy coordinator like?

Well, we had [intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien], who’s an amazing person. She was the sort of forerunner of that job, of an intimacy coach, and she worked in sex education and stuff like that. And it was great having her, because she took the pressure off of us when it came to those scenes. Because you are a little trepidatious going into it. You know?

I hadn’t really done anything like that before, so it’s something you want to feel is well-handled, and it really was. She just created an environment that was incredibly safe, and it just meant that all Paul and I had to worry about was the acting of it. And they are very important scenes to the book. What I love about them is they’re always carrying on a kind of story beat, they’re always furthering on a narrative, and they’re never just for the sake of it. And it was important to do them justice. And yeah, Ita just created an environment which meant that we could do that and we felt safe in it, which was so brilliant.

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By Libby Torres

Speaking to Insider via Zoom, O’Brien said that choreographing sex successfully is less about chemistry or the intrapersonal relationship between actors, and more about maintaining boundaries and an open line of communication between all parties, including the director.

She also stressed the power of a “positive no,” wherein an actor can express their physical boundaries without fear of repercussions, and the importance of “agreement and consent.” And for the intimacy coordinator, taking the character’s sexuality, not the actor’s, into consideration is key. 

“It’s not as if you have dialogue and then suddenly — now they’re there, they’re making love,” O’Brien said. “All of it is just a continuation of the communication between characters, be it in the text or in physical dance.”

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“Young people don’t want to be patronized,” she said. “They want to be challenged and told difficult stories.”

The series’s straightforward approach to sex is also particularly timely, given increasing cultural awareness about the unrealistic male fantasies perpetuated by online porn.

“It’s tackling different sexual topics with an honesty I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere, embracing the awkwardness of teenagers’ first exploring themselves as sexual beings,” said Ita O’Brien, the show’s intimacy coordinator. (In his review of “Sex Education” for The Times, the TV critic James Poniewozik wrote that “sex, in this show, isn’t an ‘issue’ or a problem or a titillating lure: It’s an aspect of health.”)

Nunn acknowledged that working on the new season during a pandemic has not been easy. But she has found comfort in the show’s comedy, which helps her stave off the “constant sense of low-level anxiety and dread in the air that is difficult to ignore,” she said.

As a writer, Nunn added, she is accustomed to working mostly in isolation. And that work continues to feel necessary.

“The main message of the show is the importance of honest communication,” she said. “Hopefully that will always be something worth writing about.”

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By Hank Stuever 

So they base it on sex. This is another aspect to the show that is perfectly handled, even if some viewers might find it bracingly frank. Hats off to the show’s intimacy coordinator on this one — the intimacy has not only been duly coordinated, it transcends anything that might get in its way. (In other words, they’re beautiful and it’s beautiful. Enjoy!)

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By Michael Pickard

It’s impossible to imagine a sword fight or a battle scene being filmed without actors spending many hours choreographing and rehearsing the action in detail beforehand. Similarly, a dance routine would also be the subject of meticulous planning before being recorded.

So, why is the way sex scenes are filmed only now coming under greater scrutiny? For the past few years, intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien (pictured top on set) has spearheaded a shift in the industry and led a new approach to intimacy on screen, one that invites greater communication and transparency during filming, puts in place a structure that allows for agreement and consent between actors and directors and that allows time for intimate scenes to be choreographed clearly.

“In the past, there wasn’t a sense of bringing a professional structure to the intimate work,” she explains, speaking during a keynote session at the Berlinale Series Market in February. “If you had a fight, you certainly wouldn’t just say, ‘Okay, we’ll hand you the swords and then just go for it.’ That wouldn’t be reasonable as you’re in severe danger of an injury happening. So you make sure a stunt coordinator or a fight director is there; they teach techniques and they choreograph the fight content. They will have spoken to the director and made sure they’re serving the director’s vision. If there’s a dance, of course, you’re not going to just talk about it and then throw the people on and say, ‘Right, just do the tango.’ You’re going to have a choreographer, who’s going to listen to the director, hear their vision, choreograph clearly and then make sure you create a scene that serves the storytelling.”

It’s that approach that O’Brien is now bringing to intimate content, having worked on series such as Sex Education, Normal People, Gangs of London, Bulletproof, Pennyworth, Gentleman Jack and Watchmen.

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BY CHLOE LAWS

I’ve not seen sex like this on TV before. There’s no glossy filter. It’s not sanitised. They have a cup of tea before. They have some awkward small talk. They fumble, and laugh, and talk. It’s not fireworks, a bra perfectly falling off, a bottle of champagne open. But just because it isn’t ‘Hollywood’ romantic doesn’t mean it isn’t romantic.

As the series continues, as does their sex life – a perfect illustration of how growing up, and finding yourself, means your tastes change. Marianne, around the age of 21, develops an interest in BDSM. The physicality of their sex changes, but the dialogue never does – it is always judgment-free, and sensitive. Every sex scene in Normal People was guided by an “intimacy coordinator”, Ita O’Brien, to make sure the actors were comfortable – that level of care, on set, shows on screen. O’Brien told The Guardian “It was crucial for me to honour Sally’s writing. There is nothing gratuitous. But there is also a lot of sex.”

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By Britnee Meiser

“It’s really important to be truthful with the nudity,” Daisy explains. “Often it’s not even in a sexual capacity. It’ll be incidental, like Connell coming out of the shower and getting changed, and it just happens to be a moment. But it’s not about [the nudity] at all, it’s just very real to what a relationship is really like.”

Filming such raw sex scenes in Normal People was a new experience for Daisy, and she credits her gripping performance (my words, not hers) to a relaxed on-set environment established by Lenny, who was conscious of having a gender-balanced crew, and Ita O’Brien, the show’s intimacy coordinator. Ita, who has worked on shows like Netflix’s Sex Education and HBO’s Gentleman Jack, stressed the importance of consent and clarity when working through a sex scene, and Daisy said it took all the pressure off. “All Paul and I had to think about were the story beats,” she says. “It was her job to worry about the choreography. She was wonderful, she always made sure that we were comfortable with everything and we felt safe and were well looked after.”

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Listen to the interview with Ita O’Brien on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme.

The show has an “intimacy coordinator” called Ita O’Brien, who choreographs more explicit scenes. “Nobody is going to be touched anywhere they’re not prepared for. Everyone can speak up in a very open and safe way. I think a lot of the actors have felt empowered by that. It’s made them feel they can be braver in those scenes, because they have that back-up.”

Despite how explicit the show can be, Nunn says she’s never had anyone tell her they were upset. “I think the opening scenes of season one and season two are quite graphic, so if it’s not for you, then you’re probably not going to get to the anal douching bit.” She’s laughing, but she knows that really isn’t what Sex Education is about. “At its heart, the show’s about communication and honesty. There’s a sweetness to it. I think you’d have to work quite hard to get really offended.”

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Interview by Gregory Ellwood

Beyond that, we also worked with a wonderful woman Ita O’Brien, who’s an intimacy coordinator. She has developed a way of talking about and working on intimate scenes. A bit like a stunt coordinator might step in when you’re designing action sequences. This is entirely different in one way but it’s another person who has a way of working safely and positively around that sort of material. Ita came in. She talked to about how she worked [to the cast and crew]. It’s around consent. It’s around how you speak about these things. It’s about openness. It’s around understanding that what you’re doing is representing states of feeling and physical patterns and how that can be done in a way that feels safe and empowering for the people involved. And then myself, Ita and the actors would talk about each sequence and design it together, always having a process of consent and a way [in which] nothing would happen if [the actors] didn’t feel comfortable.

And here’s a big advantage. I think, like a lot of directors, I like to be in control. And I was worried if somebody’s going to get between me and what I need this to be and to feel like as a filmmaker. But actually, it worked in a really positive way. Because the danger for me, I think, if we’d worked the traditional way. The “old way” where you just muddled through in interaction with actors. In fact, as an established director 30-years-older than the actors, I would worry that they feel pressured to do things because they thought I wanted them to. In a way, that would stop me from asking. Because I’d hate to feel like they would feel any pressure because I’d asked. However much I said, “Listen, it’s totally up to you but here’s how I see it.” I was worried that they would not want to say, “Listen, I don’t really feel good about that.” That they wouldn’t want to disappoint me. Having Ita there just meant there’s this other layer. And it means that they have a process and a context in which they can say when they don’t feel right about something or that they would like to think about it a different way. I hope people like the series. But I think one thing you’re going to have to admit if you see it is that those scenes are very natural, feel, I think, very real.

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By Horatia Harrod

When the idea of using an “intimacy co-ordinator” to help figure out the sex scenes was mooted, Abrahamson was dubious. “Part of me thought, when the intimacy co-ordinator comes in, everybody’s going to be swinging from the chandeliers. Or that it would be something that we’re doing as a sop to post-#MeToo film-making — like, a health and safety officer for the bedroom.”

But his scepticism melted away on meeting Ita O’Brien, who trained as a dancer before advising on programmes including Sex Education and Channel 4’s Humans. He credits her with helping his young, relatively little-known actors — Paul Mescal, in his TV debut, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, in her first leading role — to put aside any awkwardness.

“She takes the shyness away, and finds a way of negotiating touch and consent, which is really simple but which always goes back to the actors to make sure that they’re comfortable with what’s happening,” he says. “We did also have such a laugh because she’s got all these videos of different animals, from slugs to snakes to dogs to elephants, making love, so you can say, no, this is more of a sluggy moment. It’s a brilliant way of helping the actors to find an external language for it.”

It says something about Abrahamson that he embraced being disempowered: “The key thing is, if you’re a relatively well-established director, and you’re working with young actors, there is always a worry that the actors will say yes to things because you’re asking them to, and they don’t want to disappoint you. That’s all gone in the context of Ita [O’Brien].”

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By Greg Barradale

In particular, one early sex scene in Normal People – where Connell and Marianne first have sex and Connell says it won’t be awkward if she decides to stop – has won plaudits.

This isn’t an accident. Shows like this use someone called an intimacy co-ordinator. Sex Education did it, and as with that, the sex scenes just seem to land right. Ita O’Brien, who worked on the Normal People production as an intimacy co-ordinator, has revealed the process behind all this.

Sex scenes are planned out in meticulous detail before, using a host of tricks. “I’m bringing in techniques, like holding onto different body parts, looking at what we can push against each other,” O’Brien told The Times.

“You never want to have pubic bone against pubic bone,” said O’Brien.