News & Press: Press

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.”

The British actor spoke to Insider ahead of the release of Netflix’s new adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s seminal novel, in which he plays the role of Oliver Mellors, the taciturn but tender working-class gamekeeper who embarks on a passionate affair with his employer’s wife, Lady Constance Chatterley (Emma Corrin).

Staying true to the story’s erotic nature, the film features several intimate scenes between the two, culminating in a euphoric sequence in which they dance completely naked in the rain.

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, who previously worked on the BBC/Hulu series “Normal People.”

Noting that it was his “first experience” of working with someone who has been specifically employed on set to facilitate the filming of sex scenes, he said he was glad to have them there.

“I think that it is necessary,” he told Insider. “To have someone who’s officially appointed to oversee that everyone is comfortable, I think it is vital.”

Read the article

What I enjoyed so much about your Lady Chatterley’s Lover is just how sexy it is. There’s a real lack of eroticism and sexuality on-screen and, as you say, human touch and connection. What’s your perspective on the state of sex and romance on-screen?

I thought [the sex] was very faithful to Lawrence because this is what he always wanted to bring. I felt I needed to bring this as well, but as a revitalization of a human being, as something that heals. Especially the scene where they’re running under the rain naked—there’s something so erotic and so liberating. When I was reading the script, I had forgotten that scene, and I was like, “Well, this is what I want to experience and explore, and bring this ecstatic freedom.” The actors felt the same way.

I saw that you used intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien—who’s worked on Normal People and I May Destroy You—for the sex scenes.

She helped us dive into those scenes and face them as an emotional narrative, to be shameless and not awkward about details. She was there to explain and guide us through it and make it authentic. We had two weeks of rehearsals—Jack, Emma, Ita, the cinematographer [Benoît Delhomme] and I—and we found the right shapes, the right emotions, the best choreography.

Emma and Jack were really involved in this process. It cemented our trust and bond. [The process was] desexualized, which was important—because when you’re rehearsing the scene, there’s always a fine line between reality and fiction, and it can be awkward. As a former actress, I have to say that I was on set a while ago and I had to face this kind of scene. No one would tell me anything and guide me through it. I was petrified. It’s not only that it’s not pleasant, but you also don’t do a good job because you are not fully prepared in a safe space.

Read the article

She also says that making a movie with so much sex in it “was a challenge, because sexual intercourse can be really boring on-screen”.

However, with the help of intimacy coordinator and movement director Ita O’Brien – who has a background in dance – Clermont-Tonnerre says they used “choreography” to “say something about the emotional growth” of each scene and avoid anything “gratuitous or redundant”.

The filmmaker also says the book was well ahead of its time.

“DH Lawrence was the first writer to address female sexual pleasure. And I think this is always important to glorify the body of a woman and what he really wanted to say was that sexuality is pure and beautiful and nothing shameful and dirty,” she said.

Read the article

Finally, directing is about drawing the best from performers: a function not only of rigorous and precise work, but also of a supportive and safe rehearsal room. We worked closely with intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien and movement director Sarita Piotrowski on making scenes that honour the truth and continued relevance of this story, while respecting human feelings of discomfort and vulnerability. In the old days, performers and audience alike had merely to accept traumatic material: today we place similar emphasis on alerting our audience to what they will see and hear, treating subjects with the sensitivity they deserve.

The Rape of Lucretia will never be an opera like Carmen or The Marriage of Figaro, drawing in large crowds. It is a strange, unsettling, at times unbearably private piece, but it will remain a work whose originality and unique force will continue to trouble audiences for as long as the awful crime at its centre blights humankind.

Read the article

Emma Corrin weighs in on debate about intimacy coaches as they discuss filming racy scenes for Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Addressing the sex scenes on the radio show, Emma gushed over their intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien, who also worked on Normal People, saying her role was vital during filming.

The introduction of intimacy coaches have caused much debate, with Emma weighing in on the issue as they said they are pleased the film industry has started to use them.

‘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,’ they said.

‘I always compare it to like, you wouldn’t do a fight sequence or a stunt sequence without a stunt coordinator, and you shouldn’t do intimacy scenes without an intimacy coordinator.’

Read the article

Corrin was attached to the project before the search for the right Mellors began. Given the levels of intimacy required, the actor had to be someone who could balance great vulnerability and rawness with physical magnetism — not just “the gruff guy who lives in the woods, who represents sex,” as Corrin puts it. O’Connell, whose career from the days of Skins and Starred Up onward has tended toward explorations of the sensitive spots that lie beneath hard, masculine exteriors, was the perfect fit. “We got on well, we’re very good friends,” Corrin says, adding that they rehearsed intensively with Sex Education and Master of None intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien beforehand, blocking every sex scene beat by beat like a dance. “I think [they] are just the most brilliant people, and so essential. You wouldn’t do a stunt without a stunt coordinator, so why would you do a sex scene without an intimacy coordinator?”

Read the article

But Normal People endeared him to fans who were patently less interested in his craft than in his body. Mescal never got comfortable with seeing naked pictures of himself across the internet, though he says he’s proud of the sex scenes because of their authenticity. He and his co-star, Daisy Edgar‑Jones, worked closely with an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who compares her job to teaching people to waltz.

Read the article

The sex scenes could have made for more mortifying stories. But the actors worked closely with the show’s intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, to make them feel safe and liberating. “It was actually a really good bonding thing,” Denton said. And with sex out of the way — lots of it, especially in the first episode — they could navigate the riskier contours of Camille and Pascal’s relationship.

Read the article

Corrin was very much on board with de Clermont-Tonnerre’s vision, telling the director, “‘I want to explore that feeling of ecstatic freedom’…Emma’s such a free spirit and I think they wanted to express that through Connie.”

The film did have an intimacy coordinator on set, Ita O’Brien, who worked on Hulu’s Normal People, so viewers can enjoy the intimacy knowing there was a lot of communication and consent involved and a whole lot of rehearsal. Corrin told Vanity Fair that the “sex scenes would never feel gratuitous and it would always feel justified.”

“I felt so in awe of it, and also of Connie’s whole journey with her sexuality and her own access to pleasure and her body,” Corrin added.

Read the article

BY TORI BRAZIER

Ita O’Brien has been working in the theatre, TV and film industry for almost 40 years – first as a dancer and actor before training as a movement director. However, it is her role as an intimacy coordinator that has seen her feted by actors and pushed to the forefront of a global conversation following the birth of the #MeToo movement five years ago this month.

She is one of the most positive consequences in Hollywood of the downfall of disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein in October 2017, since sentenced to 23 years in jail for his sex crimes against women in the industry.

With the formation of the Time’s Up organisation in response to #MeToo in January 2018, productions started realising more formal processes were needed to protect both crew members and performers in the workplace.