News & Press: Press

By Emma Firth

Indeed, these brushstrokes of authenticity are alluring. I cast back to when Normal People was first released two years ago, dissecting the frenzy around these ‘graphic’ scenes with girlfriends over WhatsApp. “They’re realistic,” one posted in the chat. There’s the build-up, the taking off of underwear (again, a televisual rarity), grabbing condoms, consent-affirming dialogue, pre-and-postcoital laughter, lounging nude and happy-drowsy in bed together. It feels up close and personal and, above all, joyful, even in those flickering embers of awkwardness. The characters in Sally Rooney’s adaptations are so viscerally present in their bodies, and in synergy with someone else’s, it’s impossible not to be entranced by its magnetism.

Credit here goes to O’Brien’s physical storytelling. “I’m looking at the details, how body parts meander into each other, such as the spines moving together, pulling the hip towards a thigh [and] bringing the energy down to the pelvis during intercourse so that, anatomically, we believe them,” she says. “That allows us to stay more connected to the emotional journey.”

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“I found that really interesting, that we could explore that too, of how the different sides of a relationship would bring out different qualities of intimacy,” Oliver says.

To help out in that department, Conversations hired Ita O’Brien, the same intimacy coordinator who worked on Normal People. That intimacy coordinators is still a relatively new thing and shows like Conversations used to film sex scenes without them is “so mad,” Oliver says.

“In terms of the difficulty of it, it’s probably always the initial stuff of the embarrassment in the beginning of, like, ‘Oh, god. We’re doing this,’” she continues. Luckily, director Lenny Abrahamson—who also worked on Normal People (notice a pattern?)—encouraged the actors to embrace “the weirdness of it” from the start. “When you have someone like that, it really, really puts you at ease, more so than someone to make light of it.”

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Intimacy on a television or movie set can be many things. It may include a hug between an older married couple, someone changing a nappy, a medical or historical scene that involves nudity, a fleeting hand graze, a simulated sex scene.

When the director of photography is focused on getting the best shot, the producer is making sure production is on schedule and on budget, and the actor is fixated on giving their best performance, consent can get lost or diluted.

Until the #MeToo movement, the job title ‘intimacy coordinator’ was virtually non-existent, and the work mainly existed in diluted forms. Even now, there’s just a handful of accredited intimacy coordinators in Australia.

But demand is growing, intimacy coordinator Chloe Dallimore told The Feed.

“Now for many of the big organisations we are embedded in the OH and S (Occupational Health and Safety) policy,” Chloe said.

“I challenge everyone to actually sit and watch the credits on productions and see how many have an intimacy coordinator because it’s on almost every production.”

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Award-winning film director Lenny Abrahamson has said the industry has to “clean up its act” when it came to shooting sex scenes.

Lenny has directed a second TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends, which airs next Wednesday on Rte One.

The ‘Room’ director who previously found global success with Normal People opened up about filming sex scenes – saying having Intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien on set helped make actors more comfortable.

He told us: “I think we have all heard stories from actors who haven’t had good experiences on set. Not necessarily abusive but situations where people feel uncomfortable and not supported.

“There was a feeling the industry had to clean up its act around a lot of this stuff. “Normal People was the first show of scale where an intimacy co-ordinator was used. I think the danger is, if you’re a renowned director that’s a bit older than the cast, as an example, you might say what you want to happen in this scene to a young actor.

“And maybe the actor doesn’t feel comfortable but doesn’t want to upset you? You don’t want people to feel like I’d better do it because I don’t want to upset. I have worked with actors who can tell stories about how it’s been. Directors who have said look I’m embarrassed to talk about this to the actors.

“You guys figure it out. That’s way too much pressure on two actors who may not know each other very well”.

However having Intimacy co-ordinator Ita on set helped actors have comfortable conversations about sex scenes while filming Conversations With Friends.

Lenny said: “I have been always very tentative about approaching those scenes. Having an intimacy co-ordinator just provides a way of talking which gets past that. “Separately who is really encouraging the actors to be complexly candid about what they might feel good about doing.

“Then because nobody is feeling awkward or embarrassed it allows you to do good work. The actors are lending their bodies to the making of these shapes.

“On a practical level too, an intimacy co-ordinator knows about every form of padding and cover up on set which is good for the crew as well who could feel embarrassment”.

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He also spoke about the importance of bringing back intimacy coach Ita O’Brien for the new mini-series, which was majority funded by the BBC and Hulu in association with RTÉ.

He said that the “risky thing” in the old way of doing things is that a younger actor may automatically agree to something as they don’t want to upset a more experienced director.

“There’s always that worry so previously I’ve been very tentative about approaching those scenes. What having an intimacy co-ordinator does is just to provide a way of talking. You just get past that. The actors have somebody that they can talk to, separately, who is really encouraging them – as am I and everyone else – to be really candid that they might not feel good about doing.

“And with that confidence, you can actually go about thinking about the scene. It’s like dance choreography. We are all about the making of images we are all collaborating on that.

“The actors are lending their bodies to the making of the shapes. And when you think about it like that, it stops it becoming an awkward, embarrassing pretend. it becomes more of a dignified thing where all of you are very respected in that context and very listened to.”

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By Ella Kemp

Normal People was so affecting because of the microscopic focus on Marianne and Connell, with empathetic performances from Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal somehow capturing everything Rooney confessed on the page. Conversations has a more difficult job – as did the book – to honour the inner lives of four different people, led by the most reluctant, pessimistic and guarded of the group.

There are still tender moments, and brief flashes of light – intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien teams once more with director Lenny Abrahamson to give sex scenes, mainly between Frances and Nick but also Frances and Bobbi, great emotional heft, telling their own story just as clearly as the dialogue and unspoken yearning of everyone’s body language. Kirke and Lane prove just how vital satellite characters can be to a story of knotty, difficult romance. Alwyn struggles to rise to the material at times, at his best when Nick is finally given permission to break down and finally feel something, anything.

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By Aaron Tinney

Ciaran Hinds has revealed an intimacy coordinator choreographed a sex scene with his wife on the set of his new TV show.

The Belfast-born actor (69) said the supervisor also worked with his actress daughter Aoife on the popular BBC show Normal People.

Ciaran and his French-Vietnamese actress wife Helene Patarot (68) are seen having sex against a wheelie bin in an alleyway in episode three of Irish-set comedy drama series The Dry.

He said about working with his partner of 34 years: “I did have a long chat with Paddy [Breatnach — the director] about that whole episode, and about the idea of people of a certain age getting it on behind the bins.

“But he convinced me not to be embarrassed by it because it had to be something quite shocking, but also odd and quite funny too.

“The odd thing is that we had an intimacy coordinator on set. You talk about how to deal with sexual situations and sexual issues, and how to feel comfortable together on set.

“She knew that we were married and said that we probably wouldn’t need any supervision.

“And indeed Helene had the time of her life, having such a laugh at it.

“But the curious thing was that the intimacy co-ordinator had been the intimacy co-ordinator for Aoife, too, on Normal People.

“So basically she has sexed up the whole family.”

Ciaran and Helene’s daughter Aoife (31) played Helen, the “other woman”, in Normal People.

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BY MARY CATE SMITH

The first TV adaptation of Rooney’s work marked a huge departure for sex scenes on Irish and international television and in so many ways, it paved the way for more honest, raw storytelling around relationships. Conversations with Friends hit the ground running by hiring the Normal People intimacy coach, Ita O’Brien. While a whole host of film sets pre-dating the #MeToo era have been mired in controversy regarding sexual misconduct, Oliver says that this set was very professional and that she felt “100% safe at all times.”

Not only did O’Brien pioneer the role of intimacy coordinator on film and television sets, she also established a set of best practice guidelines for practitioners in the industry and introduced genital-shielding props to film sets. So, what exactly does an intimacy coordinator do? According to Oliver, there’s a lot of discussion around consent and expectations before any touching ever happens and to ensure that nothing touches anything it shouldn’t.

“Once you meet her, you’ll talk in depth about scenes that have an intimate nature and why we’re doing them. She’ll talk a lot about the quality of intimacy and the kind of story we’re trying to tell with this intimacy, which I think is really important. It’s very much about storytelling rather than showing – it’s very narrative-driven.” O’Brien looks at the beats of the scene says Oliver, and the “shapes you make to tell that story,” settling on a set of pre-agreed movements that look and feel authentic to the action and allow the actors to feel safe.

“By the time you actually do the scene, you’ve choreographed it so much and you feel the most safe you can. There’s such a respect and it’s handled in such a brilliant way.”

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By Rebecca Nicholson

Alwyn had read Conversations With Friends and Normal People already, long before his involvement in the former. “I read Normal People before I knew they were making a show out of it, and I remember when I saw it thinking, I’d love to be in something like that.” Normal People’s sex scenes between Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) became such a talking point that people began to lust over Mescal’s silver chain, as if everything else about him had been exhausted. In Conversations With Friends, Nick has a heated affair with Frances, and Alwyn is fairly regularly, if tastefully, naked in it. “We were guided through it with an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, who is great,” he says. “They’re essentially choreographed. So they’re like fight scenes. They’re quite mechanical. And obviously they’re weird, funny, strange things to do with your friends. But when Lenny’s in the room, cracking jokes, and there’s 10 crew members around, and it’s freezing cold or boiling hot, it just takes all the sexiness out of it.”

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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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