News & Press

By Lauren Puckett-Pope 

In the new Hulu series Conversations With Friends, Alison Oliver and her co star Joe Alwyn spark an onscreen chemistry too intense to ignore.

Walk me through what it was like working with your intimacy coordinator. How do you make those scenes feel as real as they do in the books?
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AO: There’s a brilliant system in place for it, where [intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien] will come into a rehearsal with us. We’ll discuss the scene: What’s the trajectory, and what’s the quality of intimacy? And why is it happening? It’s a continuation of dialogue, in a sense. It just becomes physical. So, from the get-go, [sex scenes] were presented to us as you would do a stunt and you’d choreograph that. We’d rehearse it loads. Ita would come in and suggest—Lenny would always talk about them as “shapes,” making different “shapes.” She would try out different ones, and then we’d copy her.

JA: Lenny always spoke about the [sex scenes] as extensions of conversations. They weren’t just there for the sake of it. Obviously, they’re funny and awkward things at the beginning. But once you get over that and you’re working with people you trust—and Lenny’s in the room, and Lenny is hilarious. You would want him on set in any scene.

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While the movie primarily revolves around the investigation of a hijack, it features a crucial intimate scene with Henry (Pine) and Celia (Newton) in the heart of it. The scene is an important turning point for the on-screen couple and the movie. Speaking about shooting the film, Pedersen revealed that an intimacy director was brought on sets for the shot and it was his first time working with an intimacy coordinator.

“This is actually the first time I worked with an intimacy coordinator because it is a fairly new thing in the industry and it was just a really great experience because you creating a situation where there’s a lot of, we really have to trust each other and feel that what we do together is safe and the fact that you have someone whose sole job is to talk to the actors about what feels good for them and what they like and where their personal boundaries are and also someone who could actually help to make it feel more sensual and more real because that’s her expertise, it’s almost like a stunt coordinator with specific expertise in doing intimacy work so for me it was a great help and I feel very proud and I know that Chris and Newton too (are) with what could achieve with that scene,” he said.

The director revealed that the scene took two days to shoot. “We shot for two days, including rehearsals for that scene and it was such a wonderful moment of sharing something that was so important to the story and that’s also a real challenge to achieve, make and feel as real and profound as it does in this film,” he said.

Pedersen explained that the scene was crucial for the film as the scene forms the ‘heart of the story’. Asked if Pine and Newton felt any hesitation before filming, the director said, “My sense was and how I remember it was we were all very humble and curious about how we could make that moment feel as profound as it is for Henry and Cilia and the story. It’s a great feat of acting for both of them, I was very honoured and proud that we could go to that length together to create that scene.”

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Indeed, for True Things, she hired Ita O’Brien, the intimacy coordinator who has worked on Normal People, Sex Education and I May Destroy You. “In the past, people would avoid the subject of a sex scene and not talk about it until the day before, so you’d be left on the day to make it up as you went along,” Wilson says. “At best, people felt awkward, and at worst, exploited or unsafe. An intimacy coach demands that the conversation happen with the director and actors in advance, so together you find a way to express that part of the story in a really honest, specific and safe way.”

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Wilson’s abrupt exit from The Affair in its fourth season in 2018 was reportedly down to issues with its frequent sex scenes and a “toxic environment” on set. True Things employed intimacy director Ita O’Brien, something Wilson, who is also one of the film’s producers, believes is crucial.

“It will help people be more adult about sex scenes,” she says. “Sex can be incredibly sexy. It can be also painful and really isolating and lonely – all sorts. Having an intimacy coach encourages frank conversations and provides a safe environment.”

“Sex is such a mystery! Such a wonderful, complex mystery,” she continues with a laugh. “Each time you have it, it can be incredibly different, even if it’s with the same partner for years. That’s so interesting, you know? Often, I don’t think people manage to be really truthful about what those experiences are like.”

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By Sarah Crompton

​“In True Things each sex scene depicts the journey of the relationship. Sexuality is part of human nature. We have to put it on screen so it’s not about taking it out. It’s about making it really specific and honest.”

On the film, Wilson called in the intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien and they choreographed the encounters in advance. “If people are able to have conversations and talk about the intent, and where their boundaries are and what the director wants, it’s a really great thing. It’s not just two actors getting on with it.

“Invariably, doing that you feel uncomfortable. At best its awkward, at worst it can become quite exploitative and you’re not getting it right anyway. Weirdly, by talking about it, by choreographing it, you can probably get scenes that are safer for the actors, but also more explicit and interesting, natural, real, honest portrayals of sex.”

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While previewing the film at Beverly Hill’s The London West Hollywood, Thandiwe Newton confessed to ET’s microphones that she felt a little embarrassed during the love scene she had to shoot with Chris Pine for All the Old Knives:

“We had a really intense scene right in the middle of the movie, it was really important and required to be naked. I had just glimpsed Chris and I thought ‘Oh no, no, no’”

The actress, however, explained how Chris Pine is kind and thoughtful and, in the end, put her at ease:

“But it’s such a treasure. And the intimacy was handled so beautifully, it was handled well because we had an intimacy coordinator. So everyone knew what was going on.”

Thandiwe Newton explained that the roles of intimacy coordinators have become very important for productions, especially those that include scenes involving nudity and physical intimacy:

“That’s why we have the co-ordinator of intimacy. Everyone agrees to every detail of what’s happening. Everyone agrees … and then we go to work.”

Note: this article is no longer available online.

BY BROOKE THEIS

Her latest project, True Things, is the first film Wilson has both co-produced and starred in. Adapted from the novel by Deborah Kay Davies, the psychological drama is set in modern-day Ramsgate, and follows a benefits officer whose life becomes entwined with that of an ex-convict through mutual infatuation. She explained that it was important for her to employ an intimacy coach, Ita O’Brien, when filming, to help work through the sex scenes. “For so many years in TV and film there was the sense that if you were an actress, you’d just get naked, that’s what you do, and that wasn’t brought into question much,” she said. “Women and young girls weren’t being asked if they were comfortable or not – and very often they weren’t. And they were being encouraged, and sometimes coerced, into being in those vulnerable positions.

“It’s not about taking sex off the screens, it’s about showing it in a more truthful and respectful way,” she added. “Having intimacy coaches means that you can talk about your boundaries, or what you feel uncomfortable about, and you can actually get much better sex scenes as a result.”

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By Marc Malkin

Janus told me it was the first time you ever worked with an intimacy coordinator.

I had never done that before. You’re doing a sex scene in a bedroom and you have this older woman that’s watching and giving your notes on how to do the sex scene and I’m thinking, “Who is this person telling me how to have sex?” [Laughs.] But it was wonderful. She was lovely. It just takes the pressure off. There’s just no discomfort, because you have someone like a referee making sure it’s all above board and everyone is comfortable. She’s also like a choreographer making sure it all translates well on screen like, “Move your neck” or “Arch your back more.”

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Acclaimed director Katie Mitchell’s gripping new production of Handel’s Theodora opens at the Royal Opera House on Monday 31st January 2022.

Not heard in Covent Garden since its 1750 premiere, and sung in the original English libretto by Thomas Morell, Theodora is a tour de force for soloists and chorus alike, with ensembles, duets and arias of profound depth and beauty.  This new interpretation, conducted by Baroque specialist Harry Bicket, will re-frame the oratorio’s narrative, and is the first Royal Opera production to benefit from the expertise of an Intimacy Coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who joins the female-led creative team, taking on a vital role in the production process. 

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By Tim Ashley

Handel considered Theodora the greatest of his oratorios. Few today would disagree with him, though it was surprisingly unsuccessful at its Covent Garden premiere in 1750, and the Royal Opera’s new production effectively marks its overdue homecoming. Notoriety, however, began to cling to Katie Mitchell’s staging well before opening night, thanks to trigger warnings about “explicit violence” on the Royal Opera website, and the much reported employment of intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien to ensure the performers felt comfortable with the sex scenes. All this has to some extent been a bit of a distraction, as the production is for the most part a reined-in affair, and neither particularly explicit (either sexually or in its depiction of violence) nor quite as inflammatory as anticipated.

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By Nadia Khomami 

Love, power, agony and death – throughout its history opera has been cherished for its displays of unbridled passion. But for those enacting scenes of murder, sex and sometimes even rape, words like consent and agency have rarely come up.

Now, in what’s thought to be a British first, the Royal Opera House (ROH) is consulting with Ita O’Brien – an intimacy coordinator who ensures actors feel comfortable during such scenes – for Katie Mitchell’s new production of Theodora, opening on Monday.

George Frideric Handel’s oratorio – about a Christian martyr who is forced into prostitution, threatened with rape and executed by Roman authorities – first premiered at the Covent Garden venue 250 years ago. For Julia Bullock, a soprano who plays the titular role, it’s a symbolic and vital moment.

“I’ve been in so many rehearsal spaces where usually it’s the performers who are making complaints about scenes, but to have that preemptively addressed was such a relief,” she said.

BY FIONNUALA HALLIGAN
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Audiences will hopefully never look at perspective, slow-mo, fragmented bodies or female faces presented in 2D in the same way again, thanks to Menkes’ two-decades-plus of research. She certainly proves that shot design is gendered. As her eloquent interviewee Amy Zierling notes: “It’s invisible, and you don’t notice the air.” 

Menkes moves beyond the predatory camera and the subject-object set-up, though. With her commentators  — who also include Eliza Hittman, Julie Dash, Laura Mulvey, the intimacy co-ordinator Ita O’Brien and Joey Soloway, amongst others, she talks about the implied violence hidden in these tropes. The up-the-bum shot, the slow-pan down the body, the whole idea of a beautiful unconscious woman — taken to an extreme, recalls Rosanna Arquette, when her dead character was embraced by the camera in a sexual manner in Scorsese’s After Hours. Dead women, silent women – as with Cathy Moriarty’s character in Raging Bull, who literally couldn’t be heard – women seen bent over from behind – these turn into women whose consent is immaterial. The ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ trope where Harrison Ford, for example, smacks a resisting Sean Young in Bladerunner and she’s suddenly aroused, as with Jessica Lange in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). It’s disempowerment at its essence and, as Menkes said, it worms its way into the collective consciousness through the global power of Hollywood. (Or, in other words, forms the “bedrock of the language of rape culture”.) 

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The Girl Before star Jessica Plummer gave insight into how the cast worked closely under the eye of intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien and explained the ’safe’ practices she brought to set.

The BBC drama tells the story of Jane (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who becomes the tenant of a super minimalist property, designed by mysterious architect Edward (David Oyelowo). 

There’s one catch; she must live by his very specific set of rules and has limits on what and who she can bring into her life, and her new home.

But she soon ends up making some shocking discoveries about the titular ‘girl before’ Emma (Jessica Plummer), who met a grisly end three years previously.

Amid coming to grips with the initial plotline, the series also made for some more difficult scenes for the cast during production, with some very intimate moments to film.

Intimacy on screen is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years its place in the film industry has been rediscovered. The emergence of intimacy coordinators can be credited for this revolution, changing approaches to sex scenes both artistically and pragmatically. 

Male dominance in the film industry has historically moulded sexual depictions of women in objectified and degrading ways. It has also perpetuated these attitudes on set. Maria Schneider’s experience, in which she was purposely excluded from the decision to substitute butter for lubricant in her scripted rape scene, demonstrated indifference to boundaries in the workplace. In fact, the intention for director Bernardo Bertolucci was to inspire a genuine emotion of humiliation in Schneider, treating her as a prop on set. The negative psychological impact on Schneider demonstrated the need for safeguarding measures protecting women in the film industry.

Following the viral #MeToo movement in 2017, concerns around sexual assault and manipulative behaviour in the industry were pushed to the forefront. The exposure of Harvey Weinstein unmasked a world of abuse behind the glamorised Hollywood name. 

In the same year, intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien introduced her ‘Intimacy on Set Guidelines’, inspiring a momentous shift in the treatment towards sex on set. New rules were implemented to ensure actors’ consent and set boundaries for their comfort. This shift also impacted the representation of sex on screen. Rather than constituting an entertaining and commodified addition to film and TV, sex scenes were revolutionised as realistic, vulnerable and emotive portrayals of human experience. 

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The weight of the show falls on the shoulders of the three leads: clever Melchior, whose high-minded dreams of a better future are nearly crushed by the consequences of his affair with the naïve but lovely Wendla; and well-meaning Moritz, who is destroyed by the weight of expectations placed upon him. All are utterly superb.

As Melchior, Laurie Kynaston (familiar from The Son and The Ferryman) has a tentative openness, and a firm belief in his own knowledge that make his descent almost unbearable to watch. Amara Okereke as Wendla matches him in tenderness and magnanimous trust; the scene where they make love (staged with the help of intimacy director, Ita O’Brien) has a touching clumsiness that makes it all the more affecting. Her singing is so pure and radiant, it seems to come directly from her heart. The last of the central trio, Stuart Thompson, is simply heart-breaking and there are fine performances too from Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea as one of life’s survivors and Carly-Sophia Davies as one of the world’s lost souls. It is a triumphant achievement and I wish it a long run and full houses.

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By K.J. Yossman

​Leading intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien, who has worked on projects including “I May Destroy You” and “Normal People,” among others, has revealed she was once assaulted by a director while working on set.

O’Brien, who started her career as a dancer and movement director, was discussing the challenges of her work — including the resistance she sometimes encounters from creatives and crew — during producers’ conference Focus London.

In the beginning of her move into intimacy coordination, which was around 2015, O’Brien said productions invited her in “because they knew they really wanted” her experience and input. However, that was followed by a “middle period,” just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic starting in early 2020, when she was often met with resistance on set.

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The series hired intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien to carefully construct and choreograph the scenes with realistic portrayal. On Ita’s role, Daisy spoke about the vulnerability that actors face and the importance of having intimacy coordinator’s on set.

She said: ‘I find it very shocking that [intimacy coordinators are] new. You are simulating something, and you are very vulnerable in that moment. ‘So, it was amazing working with Ita [O’Brien, Normal People’s intimacy coordinator], she’s really good at allowing you to have agency in those moments.’ 

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In other words, Momoa never would have been pressured to remove his intimacy pouch had there been an intimacy coordinator on set to help guide the scene. But, sadly, the actors on Game of Thrones weren’t the only ones harmed by its problematic sex scenes. Fans who watched the fantasy series — particularly those who were young, sexually inexperienced and impressionable at the time — may have developed their own incorrect or outdated views on what’s considered normal or acceptable when it comes to sex and consent based on what they saw onscreen.

“Very often, how someone learns about intimacy is through what they see,” intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien told InsideHook. “That is the medium through which we’re entertaining ourselves, but also reflecting our humanity back to itself. That’s what people feel that they need to aspire to. When it’s so unrealistic, it forms a real schism in how people think they should be and what they think is normal.”

We obviously can’t go back in time and undo the damage wrought by Game of Thrones‘s lack of an intimacy coordinator, but moving forward, we can work towards making the role an industry standard to ensure that actors like Whelan are never made to feel as though their personal boundaries regarding sex and nudity have been violated at work.

Ten years after the premiere of Thrones, HBO is now using intimacy coordinators on all its productions that have intimate scenes (the move was announced in 2018 after Thrones had finished filming its final season); here’s hoping that in another decade, it’ll be an absolute requirement on all film sets.

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