“One of the key parts of the process was working with an intimacy co-ordinator called Ita O’Brien. A lot of conversation went into those scenes but part of the process of having an intimacy co-ordinator is that everything gets mapped out, everything is pre-agreed so that when you go into those scenes the actors know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and nothing within that scene is going to make them feel uncomfortable.
“Obviously they’re two young actors. Paul has not done TV work before so there’s a huge amount of responsibility of putting them in that situation and making sure that was all treated in a really serious and sensitive way. That was a big part of creating that scene, I think.”
Lenny continues: “The temptation in an adaptation would be to have her arrive, they start to talk and then to cut to them making love but we were just trying to tell the story like the love making is a continuation of everything that went before and really just watch them together exploring that new phase of their relationship.
“That felt like an exciting and worthwhile thing to try and do on screen. We talked a lot before we did any of the sex scenes.
“We all understand the notion of life drawing and the body and of what choreography is so to get past the embarrassment and the complex and confusing quality that can arise if you’re doing an intimate scene is really to understand what you’re doing and that everybody participates in that choreography.
“Nobody feels like their own intimate life is somehow asked to be produced, it’s not that at all. It’s like a dance. Once we understood that, once we all talked it through and why we were doing it the way we were doing it and what it meant, those scenes became very relaxing to do. They stopped being embarrassing in any way and that was just amazing for me. I felt like everybody felt they were empowered and had a stake in making it feel real and good, and everybody was creatively involved in it.
“It was a very positive experience and a lot of the credit goes to the ways Ita has developed to make sense of that kind of work in the context of the actors and the crew.”
More . . .
“Obviously they’re two young actors. Paul has not done TV work before so there’s a huge amount of responsibility of putting them in that situation and making sure that was all treated in a really serious and sensitive way. That was a big part of creating that scene, I think.”
Lenny continues: “The temptation in an adaptation would be to have her arrive, they start to talk and then to cut to them making love but we were just trying to tell the story like the love making is a continuation of everything that went before and really just watch them together exploring that new phase of their relationship.
“That felt like an exciting and worthwhile thing to try and do on screen. We talked a lot before we did any of the sex scenes.
“We all understand the notion of life drawing and the body and of what choreography is so to get past the embarrassment and the complex and confusing quality that can arise if you’re doing an intimate scene is really to understand what you’re doing and that everybody participates in that choreography.
“Nobody feels like their own intimate life is somehow asked to be produced, it’s not that at all. It’s like a dance. Once we understood that, once we all talked it through and why we were doing it the way we were doing it and what it meant, those scenes became very relaxing to do. They stopped being embarrassing in any way and that was just amazing for me. I felt like everybody felt they were empowered and had a stake in making it feel real and good, and everybody was creatively involved in it.
“It was a very positive experience and a lot of the credit goes to the ways Ita has developed to make sense of that kind of work in the context of the actors and the crew.”
More . . .
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