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The Guardian: Joe Alwyn on Conversations With Friends and sex scenes

30/4/2022

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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Elle: Just Between Friends

19/4/2022

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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?

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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News18: All The Old Knives Director On Chris Pine-Thandiwe Newton's Intimate Scene: 'We Shot For Two Days' | Exclusive

7/4/2022

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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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Harpers Bazaar: Ruth Wilson: Queen of all she surveys

5/4/2022

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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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i news: Ruth Wilson on True Things: ‘People don’t like seeing women being crazy’

1/4/2022

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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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The Guardian: Joe Alwyn on Conversations With Friends and sex scenes

Elle: Just Between Friends

News18: All The Old Knives Director On Chris Pine-Thandiwe Newton's Intimate Scene: 'We Shot For Two Days' | Exclusive

Harpers Bazaar: Ruth Wilson: Queen of all she surveys

i news: Ruth Wilson on True Things: ‘People don’t like seeing women being crazy’

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