The Guardian: Olly Alexander on success, sanity and It’s a Sin: ‘All those hot guys. I loved it!’
By Simon Hattenstone
He pays tribute to intimacy coordinator extraordinaire Ita O’Brien, who introduced the Intimacy on Set guidelines in 2017 and worked on Normal People as well as It’s a Sin. “Anything with sex in it, she’ll be involved. She’ll be on all fours at one point, saying: ‘Now I’m going to be like a cow and moo in ecstasy.’ She’s amazing, amazing, amazing.” And yes, he did start to enjoy the scenes.
Did he find them arousing? Now it’s my turn to blush and I apologise for the question. Did he start to enjoy it too much? “No, that’s what I want to know. What if someone gets a hard-on – how embarrassing would that be? Ita said: ‘It’s natural and normal for certain body parts to get excited and if you get an erection that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not appropriate for the workplace.’” He adds a caveat: “Depending on what kind of job you’re doing. And she said: ‘If that happens, you just take a time out. So you’re all there thinking, OK, how embarrassing – because you say time out and everybody knows it’s because you’ve got a hard-on. Hahahhaa!” Did he have to take a time out? “No!” Did anyone? “Not to my knowledge.”