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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

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

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

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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Independent: Ruth Wilson: ‘Sexuality is part of human nature. We have to put it on screen’

12/3/2022

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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Opentapes: All the Old Knives: Thandiwe Newton nervous about sex scene with Chris Pine

11/3/2022

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.”

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Harpers Bazaar: Ruth Wilson: “It’s not about taking sex off the screens, it’s about showing it in a more truthful and respectful way”

11/3/2022

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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Variety: Chris Pine Talks Working With an Intimacy Coordinator on ‘All the Old Knives’ and Waiting to See a ‘Star Trek 4’ Script

10/3/2022

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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Opera Today: Exclusive first look behind the scenes of Katie Mitchell’s thrilling new production of Handel’s Theodora

1/2/2022

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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The Guardian: Theodora review – bombs, a brothel and a brilliant cast

1/2/2022

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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The Guardian: Royal Opera House hires intimacy coordinator for sex scenes

30/1/2022

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.

“In opera, there’s so much attention given to the craftsmanship of the music, the set design, the direction of the singing and choreography, in order to allow human moments to become amplified on stage. But that also means we need to take care of the human beings who are embodying those moments.”

Bullock said she’s had a number of challenging experiences in the past, when she was put at unnecessary physical and psychological risk during intimate scenes.

“One of the first things Ita talked about was how only those directly involved in an intimate scene should be in the room for its staging. But I remember during my first ever intimate performance, my partner and I were being witnessed by 50 people, and the conductor was asking, ‘Shouldn’t Julia be simulating more noises on stage?’”

And where traditionally, she’s been left alone with a partner to explore how to stage a scene, now those conversations take place before anyone takes to the stage.

“You explore whether a man can touch your breasts, whether it’s comfortable. You go step by step over parts of the body that may be exposed or are going to be subjected to intimate touch, allowing your body to register if there’s anything that is hypersensitive, or if there’s a place where you might potentially be triggered.”

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