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The training sector must embrace the important role of the intimacy director. Like fight directors, choreographers or stunt co-ordinators, this role focuses on the need to remove risk and ensure the highest possible standards of safety on film and theatre sets as well as in the TV studio.

Excellent work is being done in this area by organisations such as Intimacy on Set which offers a range of training packages as well as advice on ensuring safe working practices and protocols.

Ita O’Brien, the organisation’s founder, stresses the importance of establishing a safe working environment:

“An injury can go from purely physical, to emotional and psychological – when someone’s body has been handled and touched in a way that is not suitable for that person … intimacy coordination work is about everybody being in agreement and consent … and about absolutely every detail serving character, serving story telling.”

Referring to her work as Intimacy Coordinator on the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s award winning novel, Normal People, O’Brien points to the vulnerability of the drama’s young leading actors (Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal) and offers an insight into how she approached early rehearsals.

“Actors want to give their best. They want to say yes, but we had to create an atmosphere where they didn’t just say yes because they felt like they needed to …Everyone had the novel, so they knew what was required, but were they happy with it?

In my first rehearsal with director Lenny Abrahamson, and leading actors Daisy and Paul, I gave a presentation and showed all of them our intimacy guidelines. Then we worked on a scene that felt like a body dance. When we were done, everybody left knowing that everything would be handled in a professional way.”

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With scenes of threesomes, drug use and sexual assault, I May Destroy You is the ‘brilliant’ and ‘dark’ drama millennials are watching now that Normal People is finished. . .

Ita O’Brien is a British movement director and intimacy coordinator for film, TV and theatre. She coached the actors in the BBC Three series Normal People and BBC One’s I May Destroy You and Netflix’s Sex Education. 

In 2017 she released a set of Intimacy On Set Guidelines outlining procedures to keep actors safe while filming scenes of nudity or sex. 

She told FEMAIL: ‘Working with an Intimacy Coordinator will start in pre-production, during the rehearsal process. 

‘A production brings in an intimacy coordinator to choreograph the intimate content. I will first talk with the actors and director about the scenes, about the characters and storyline and what the creative vision is. 

‘Then I will talk to the actors and establish agreement of consent and touch and most importantly, where is the “no”. 

‘With this knowledge of boundaries, we are able to create a safe structure within which to choreograph the intimate content, the beats of the scene, the shapes, and the actors are then free to do what they do best: act.’ 

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What do Normal People, Sex Education, Gentleman Jack and I May Destroy You have in common? Besides being undeniably brilliant TV shows, they all portray engaging and accurate sex and intimacy – and that’s largely down to Ita O’Brien.

As the pioneering creator of Intimacy on Set Guidelines, she works in theatre, TV and movie sets to choreograph simulated sexual scenes within a safe and supportive environment. It’s a fascinating job, so we asked her how she got there…

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By David Shirley

The training sector must embrace the important role of the intimacy director. Like fight directors, choreographers or stunt co-ordinators, this role focuses on the need to remove risk and ensure the highest possible standards of safety on film and theatre sets as well as in the TV studio.

Excellent work is being done in this area by organisations such as Intimacy on Set which offers a range of training packages as well as advice on ensuring safe working practices and protocols.

Ita O’Brien, the organisation’s founder, stresses the importance of establishing a safe working environment: “An injury can go from purely physical, to emotional and psychological – when someone’s body has been handled and touched in a way that is not suitable for that person … intimacy coordination work is about everybody being in agreement and consent … and about absolutely every detail serving character, serving story telling.”

Referring to her work as Intimacy Coordinator on the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s award winning novel, Normal People, O’Brien points to the vulnerability of the drama’s young leading actors (Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal) and offers an insight into how she approached early rehearsals.

“Actors want to give their best. They want to say yes, but we had to create an atmosphere where they didn’t just say yes because they felt like they needed to …Everyone had the novel, so they knew what was required, but were they happy with it? In my first rehearsal with director Lenny Abrahamson, and leading actors Daisy and Paul, I gave a presentation and showed all of them our intimacy guidelines. Then we worked on a scene that felt like a body dance. When we were done, everybody left knowing that everything would be handled in a professional way.”

Locally, actor Michala Banas is working behind the scenes at Melbourne Theatre Company as an intimacy coordinator and cites O’Brien as a mentor.

If we are to guarantee the physical, emotional and psychological safety of our students during rehearsals and performances, then the guidance of an Intimacy Director is no longer an optional extra, but an absolute necessity.

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By Katie Berrington

She also notes the equality between the on-screen couple, even as the power dynamics shifted throughout the plot. “There’s the idea that Marianne knows her mind and floors him a lot in conversation, therefore arguably she has the power in conversation. But when it comes to intimacy, she feels empowered by the way she feels so open and vulnerable to Connell. That was a really interesting thing to explore.”

Their on-screen chemistry and realistic sex scenes are part of what has drawn such praise for the series, with Ita O’Brien responsible for the intimacy direction. As part of the generation whose experience of the film and TV industry has been mainly in the wake of movements shedding light on the treatment of women, Edgar-Jones is amazed that it wasn’t always the norm.

“You need more protection because it is a stunt, with physical maneuvers that you need to make look realistic – just like in a fight scene,” she explains. “Mentally, it’s a really vulnerable place to put yourself in. You need to feel like you have the control and agency in those moments, so that you can feel relaxed and give a better performance. If we didn’t have Ita, those scenes wouldn’t be nearly as passionate… Paul and I could always speak up if we wanted to.”

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Coel says that, during the shoot, “memories of something that was deeply traumatic” were erased by the joyful experience of working closely with the production crew: “I imagine that when you climb Everest you feel this same overwhelming sense of love, euphoria and gratitude.”

The production hired Sex Education’s intimacy co-ordinator, Ita O’Brien, and used closed sets to shoot scenes with explicit sex and sexual violence. It also offered therapeutic support to the cast and production crew.

“Because of the nature of the material, there was a lot of discussion with the cast, even before filming started. There were rehearsals and workshops with Ita,” explains Troni. “In the old days, there were those terrible stories about people turning up on the day and being told, ‘You’re doing a sex scene – take your clothes off.’

“Nothing was sprung on people. There are amazing roles in I May Destroy You, but we didn’t want to put the actors in positions that they were uncomfortable with.”

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By Alex Fletcher

The series doesn’t hold any punches with its look at the partying, drugs and app-loving sex lives of modern Britain and renowned intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien (Netflix’s Sex Education) was brought in to help ensure the safety of the cast and crew.

“Ita’s the top of the game in creating an atmosphere where actors can perform,” said Essiedu.

“Some of those scenes are fun, some of them are less fun and warm. But to go there, you have to know what the playing field is. Where everything goes, when and how. What you feel comfortable touching and where you feel comfortable being touched.

“The alternative to that is just approximating and hoping for the best. Which is just wild. You would never do that if you were doing a fight scene, so why would you do that with a sex scene.”

By Catherine Gee

But Opia, who is a committed Christian, drew the line at being nude on camera while filming the threesome. Fortunately, there was a solution. “I had a body double for that scene. I’m not comfortable with nudity or sex scenes,” she says breezily over video chat from Barnet, north London, where she’s riding out lockdown with her brother and mother. “[She was] a lovely lady called Lana. She was brilliant. I think if I ever have anything like that again, I’m going to be calling her.”

As is becoming increasingly common in the current climate, the producers brought in Ita O’Brien, the intimacy co-ordinator who worked on the BBC’s Normal People and Sex Education on Netflix to make sure the actors felt safe and comfortable during the explicit moments. At the end of the threesome scene, the two men who had given Terry the impression that they didn’t know each other and that this was a spontaneous event, leave together – suggesting that they hadn’t been honest with her.

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By Shilpa Ganatra

​The sex scenes – of which there are plenty, Liveline listeners be warned – were overseen by Ita O’Brien, the intimacy co-ordinator/movement director who also worked on Normal People. Coel believes that society is in a time and place where the inclusion of intimacy co-ordinators on set should be standard.

“And on this show, because it’s exploring consent, it seems fitting that we had a director whose sole purpose was to help us with the intimacy, to empower the actors, to make sure there were no awkward feelings, and that we were all comfortable and happy,” she says. “There was no other way. Some of the scenes were really delicate, and it can go wrong so easily.

“A month before shooting, we talked around a table, we talked about consent, we talked about our lives. Then there’s a transition where you have to make the transition from sitting at the table and being in your head, to being in your body. The space between those things is difficult because we live in our heads so much. That’s Ita’s magic.

“She also brings with her this bag of protective gear. She has these pads that you put around your delicate parts so that when you’re having to do all these difficult interactions, you don’t see anything. We opted for those because it meant we could go as far as we wanted to go, and our actual physical bodies wouldn’t be triggered.

“When we were on set, the great thing about Ita is that she doesn’t care that there’s a clock ticking. If the actors need private time, if they need to connect to each other, she’ll demand that time, and that time will happen.”

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The actor on why Michaela Coel’s new drama series is so vital and why it is important to tell stories which are ignored by the mainstream

By Gabriel Tate

The sex scenes were shot with the assistance of Ita O’Brien, intimacy co-ordinator on Normal People and Sex Education. “She’ll overrule anyone to protect you,” Essiedu says. “This show asks challenging questions about consent across the full spectrum of orientations, genders and sexual preferences, so we need to be sure what we’re consenting to as well.”

The focus on sexual consent – without a condom, while high, while on a period – ensures that few of the many explicit encounters end in the way you might assume at the outset. Each one demands that the viewer musters their own interpretation of what happened. It will probably present a challenge to BBC1’s traditional audience – all the more reason, argues Essiedu, for them to show it.

“Michaela’s so great at getting across simple, universal situations that are ignored by the mainstream. It’s vital people have conversations off the back of it.”

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