Over the past few years, while we may not see it onscreen, one major change happened in the movie industry: the creation of intimacy directors and coordinators. The role, which was created as a way to facilitate conversations between directors and actors in steamy scenes, as well as prevent any inappropriate behavior on set, has become an important part of on-set culture, especially in productions with many sex scenes.
The Netflix show Bridgerton, for example, has quite an extensive list of sexy moments. And, in every one of those scenes, intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot is right by the actors’ side ensuring everyone is safe, comfortable, and happy.
“We’re very clear about the fact that it’s like doing a stunt,” Talbot explained to Glamour about her method. “I know there were a lot of people being quite dismissive of this work at the beginning, like, ‘Oh, it’s just simulating sex. How hard can that be?’ Any actor that’s done it will tell you that working in this way is physically exhausting. And if you’re working with any sensitive material, it can be quite emotionally exhausting.”
If you ask us, the role seems not only necessary but an occasional safety net for any on-set discomforts or complaints. Unfortunately, however, it seems not all of Hollywood agrees with their importance, with some actors – including the beloved Jennifer Aniston – dismissing intimacy directors altogether in The Morning Show.
To learn more about what some of our favorite actors think about intimacy coordinators, scroll below.
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston shared quite a steamy scene with Jon Hamm during season 3 of The Morning Show. But, according to the actress, an intimacy coordinator not only wasn’t present, they weren’t needed either.
“They asked us if we wanted an intimacy coordinator. I’m from the olden days, so I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ They said, ‘Where someone asks you if you’re OK,’ and I’m like, ‘Please, this is awkward enough!'” Aniston told Variety. “We’re seasoned — we can figure this one out.”
Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas had similar feelings to Aniston, telling The Telegraph earlier this year that intimacy coordinators aren’t, for him, a necessary job.
“I’m sure there were people that overstepped their boundaries, but before, we seemed to take care of that ourselves,” he told the outlet. “They would get a reputation and that would take care of them.”
Toni Collette
Toni Collette also wasn’t afraid to share her negative experiences with intimacy coordinators either.
“I think it’s only been a couple of times where intimacy coordinators have been brought in, and I have very much trusted and felt at ease with the people I was working with,” Collette told The Times, per Us Weekly. “It just felt like those people who were brought in to make me feel more at ease were actually making me feel more anxious.”
“They weren’t helping, so I asked them to leave,” she added. Ouch!
Sean Bean
Game of Thrones alum Sean Bean also caught heat in 2022 for saying that intimacy coordinators “spoil the spontaneity” and “inhibit [him] more because it’s drawing attention to things” during his acting. He told the Times, “I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.”
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet, on the other hand, has advocated for the need for intimacy coordinators, something she wished she had when she was younger.
“I would have benefited from an intimacy coordinator every single time I had to do a love scene or be partially naked or even a kissing scene,” she told The New York Times in March. “It would have been nice to have had someone in my corner, because I always had to stand up for myself.”
Winslet then explained the minor thoughts of complaints she used to have, but never felt empowered enough to speak out. “I don’t like that camera angle. I don’t want to stand here full-frontal nude. I don’t want this many people in the room. I want my dressing gown to be closer. Just little things like that,” she said. “When you’re young, you’re so afraid of pissing people off or coming across as rude or pathetic because you might need those things. So learning to have a voice for oneself in those environments was very, very hard.”
Rachel Zegler
Following Sean Bean’s controversial comments against intimacy directors, Rachel Zegler used her platform to speak up. “Intimacy coordinators establish an environment of safety for actors,” she wrote on X. “I was extremely grateful for the one we had on [West Side Story]— they showed grace to a newcomer like myself + educated those around me who’ve had years of experience.”
“Spontaneity in intimate scenes can be unsafe,” she added. “Wake up.”
Jameela Jamil
Jameela Jamil also spoke out after Bean’s remarks. “It should only be technical,” she wrote in X. “It’s like a stunt. Our job as actors is to make it not look technical. Nobody wants an impromptu grope…”
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson also spoke out after Bean’s comments. “Intimacy coordinators are fantastically important,” Thompson the Australian radio show Fitzy & Wippa, per Huffington Post.
“You were speaking [about] somebody who found it distracting, but [in] another conversation, you might find that people go, ‘It made me comfortable, it made me feel safe, it made me feel as though I was able to do this work,'” Thompson continued.
“And no, you can’t just let it flow,” she explained. “There’s a camera there, and a crew. You’re not on your own in a hotel room, you’re surrounded by a bunch of blokes, mostly… so it’s not a comfortable situation full stop.”
Rahul Kohli
Actor Rahul Kohli also spoke out at the time.
“I’ve worked with a few intimacy coordinators now, and while ever so slightly embarrassing at first, are essential for protecting our safety, making us comfortable, and opening up constructive dialogue between the actors and director when scenes call for ‘intimacy,’” the Death and Other Details star wrote on X, per Variety.
“And to any young actors out there reading this: Don’t do ANYTHING you’re uncomfortable doing,” he continued. “Being committed & giving your all to a job is admiral, but not at the expense of your mental health. Create boundaries. And f— anyone that thinks differently of you for voicing them.” We hope so many aspiring actors have listened!
Sam Heughan
Sam Heughan not only appreciates intimacy coordinators, but he pushed to have them on set in Outlander.
“We really didn’t know what we were doing [when the show started],” Heughan said in the Happy Sad Confused podcast, per Us Weekly. “We were thrown in the deep end and had to learn through the experience, so I think it’s been really great to bring [intimacy director] Vanessa [Coffey] on board to help younger actors with less experience.”
“It’s important that everyone is protected, but also we find a way to explore these scenes and actually maybe get something more out of them,” he continued. “I think this season we’ve done an even better job with those types of scenes because she really helped us understand what we are doing and how we build up this relationship and take it somewhere else, so she’s been terrific.”
Caitríona Balfe
Heughan’s Outlander co-star Caitríona Balfe also sang praises for Coffey.
“I probably was one of the people like ‘I don’t think we need that, we’ve been doing this s– ourselves and figuring it out for a while,’” Balfe said at the ATX TV Festival, per Winter Is Coming. “But actually I think it’s been so beneficial and it’s helped us, and there are other scenes with other characters, some I’ve been involved in, and some with our younger actors too.”
“It helps you create the storytelling in a way where everybody’s on board, everybody knows exactly what’s happening, we’re all on the same page,” she reiterated. “Just like you would do with fight co-ordination or whatever and it’s really helped. Vanessa [Coffey] is such an amazing addition to our family as well, she’s just been really great.”
Daisy Edgar-Jones
Daisy Edgar-Jones, who rose to stardom after her role in Normal People alongside Paul Mescal, celebrated intimacy director Ita O’Brien on the set of the Hulu show.
“You need more protection because it is a stunt, with physical maneuvers that you need to make look realistic – just like in a fight scene,” she explained to Porter. “Mentally, it’s a really vulnerable place to put yourself in. You need to feel like you have the control and agency in those moments, so that you can feel relaxed and give a better performance.”
“If we didn’t have Ita, those scenes wouldn’t be nearly as passionate,” she continued. “Paul and I could always speak up if we wanted to.”
Taylor Zakhar Perez
Taylor Zakhar Perez, who starred in the 2023 movie adaption Red, White & Royal Blue, also echoed the importance of intimacy directors, especially in the steamy movie.
“A great thing about having rehearsals is that we’d have an hour a day set aside to be with [intimacy coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt],” Perez told Glamour. “It was just like a dance. I grew up in theater, and Nick’s done musicals. We’re both very musical people. So Robbie found it easiest to talk to us in musical terms—there’s a musicality to intimacy. There’d be lots of counting. Like, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, grab. 2, 3, 4, squeeze.’ That’s what was going through my mind as we did it, to get it in your body.”
“Once your body remembers it, you can let it go,” Perez added. “The muscle memory is so strong. Then it’s just about getting your mind in the game.”
Nicholas Galitzine
Perez’s co-star Nicholas Galitzine echoed those feelings.
“It’s a very vulnerable and trusting space,” Galitzine told the outlet. “Taylor and I had to rely on each other because we really wanted to tell that story honestly and feel that we weren’t hindered by any of our own boundaries that we were setting up. It becomes a sort of wonderful choreography that all serves to facilitate these two young men who fell in love with each other. Robbie was really helpful in educating me in the physical language of the character.”
Ellen Pompeo
Ellen Pompeo has also spoken about the role, but the Grey’s Anatomy star didn’t seem too convinced.
“There’s a very exploitative nature to what we do,” Pompeo told former co-star Katherine Heigl for Variety. “There’s a very exploitive nature to what we do. Intimacy coordinators create a whole other slew of problems, but the intention behind it is good.”
Katherine Heigl
In that same conversation, Katherine Heigl shared her experience.
“I had this experience on Firefly Lane because I was like, ‘I’m an old Hollywood broad, bitch. You don’t have to tell me how to make out on camera.’ And I ended up loving this woman so deeply, and being so grateful for her because she protected us in a way that I didn’t realize how unprotected we were,” she remembered to Variety.
“And I was so grateful to her as well because we did have young girls on the set,” she reflected. “There was a rape scene. And for her to be there protecting them, I felt this weight off of me in a way that I didn’t feel like I had to find a way to fight those battles for these girls.”
Michaela Coel
Speaking of hard-to-film scenes, Michaela Coel has been open about intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien’s important role in filming I May Destroy You. In the series, Coel’s character Arabella gets sexually assaulted in a nightclub.
“I want to dedicate this award to the director of intimacy, Ita O’Brien,” Coel said as she accepted her BAFTA award in 2021, per Los Angeles Times. “Thank you for your existence in our industry, for making the space safe. For creating physical, emotional and professional boundaries, so that we can make work about exploitation, loss of respect, about abuse of power without being exploited or abused in the process.”
“I know what it’s like to shoot without an intimacy director — the messy, embarrassing feeling for the crew, the internal devastation for the actor,” Coel continued. “[O’Brien’s] direction was essential to my show — and, I believe, essential for every production company that wants to make work exploring themes of consent.”
“I also think it’s a very vulnerable place … for the crew as well, because the crew might have had experiences, and it triggers things for them,” the actress continued. “So to have her there protects everybody, and if you don’t have people like Ita on set when you’re shooting things like that, I think it’s quite thoughtless, and I think it’s really inconsiderate.”
Emma Stone
Emma Stone has also been an advocate for intimacy coordinators, especially when it comes to her R-rated Oscar-winning performance in Poor Things.
“I don’t think having an intimacy coordinator is even a choice anymore,” Stone told NPR. “I think in the past five years, the industry has changed a lot for the better. Having her there felt like having both a safety net and a choreographer and a handhold. She and I would text after a day of doing some of these scenes and just sort of say how we were feeling and what was going on. And it was just this really beautiful relationship that I found extremely, extremely meaningful.”
“I remember reading something once, that an actor on stage doing a very dramatic scene, and having meltdowns and doing monologues for 90 minutes a night just in theater, your body feels like it’s the equivalent of going through something like a car crash, because your heart is racing, you’re having these big physical reactions to these emotions that you’re kind of asking yourself to go through,” Stone reflected. “And I think even when you know you’re acting, when you know none of this is real, there’s no real sex happening, this is all choreographed, you sometimes underestimate what your body is going through separately.”
Sydney Sweeney
Anyone But You‘s Sydney Sweeney not only loves having intimacy coordinators, but she believes they’re a “necessity” on every set.
“I had my first intimacy coordinator on Euphoria, and it changed my approach to everything,” Sweeney told Roger Ebert. “I love having one and I think they should be considered a necessity on every set. I actually brought my intimacy coordinator, Amanda Blumenthal, onto my Amazon movie, The Voyeurs. I wish that more productions were aware of this and we made it a priority.”
The actress then went on to explain what goes into being an intimacy director. “When you go into a scene, they’ll make sure that everything is choreographed and everyone is okay and comfortable with what is happening,” she said. “They’ll provide safety garments or undergarments or little mini yoga mats if you don’t want your bodies to touch. They are there to be that protection when you may not feel it is your place to speak up, even though it is, but it helps you in those moments when it’s difficult to do so.”
“Of course, you don’t want to tell a director, ‘No.’ You want to make their vision come to life,” she said. “So if you’re doing a scene fifteen times and you don’t want to say, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,’ the intimacy coordinator will tell the director, ‘Okay, one more take.'”
Amy Schumer
Amy Schumer also showed her support for intimacy directors in 2023. “Appreciation post for the role of intimacy coordinators on set,” the Trainwreck star wrote via Instagram. “Worked with Nicole Callender and she should be the gold standard.”
“Every set should have them in a meaningful way to protect the performers,” she added.
Phoebe Dynevor
By now, we all know that Bridgerton has a fair share of steamy and sexy scenes throughout the seasons. For Phoebe Dynevor, who played Daphne Bridgerton in season one of the Netflix show, having an intimacy director by her side was not only crucial but comforting.
“We did the intimate scenes like stunts—we blocked them out, so you have yoga balls in between you and all sorts of things that never make you feel exposed in any way,” the Fair Play star told Glamour. “You always feel safe. I’d rehearse with Regé[-Jean Page] so much that we both knew what we were doing. It felt very practical.”
She also appreciated having someone to talk to who wasn’t her male director. “If we didn’t have an intimacy coordinator, it would be our director, who was a male, coming up to me and telling me what to do. That would have been awkward,” she told the outlet. “I felt so safe in the knowledge that [intimacy coordinator] Lizzy [Talbot] was there so that if something went wrong or the director wanted something different he could speak to her first. I think it would have been a very difficult experience if Lizzy hadn’t been on set protecting me and looking after me.”
“No one wants to be told how to perform orgasm [on set] by a man,” she added.
Jonathan Bailey
Jonathan Bailey, who plays Daphne’s older brother Anthony Bridgerton in the series, shared the same appreciation.
“It’s amazing how that whole industry has just come on, even in a year,” the actor told Radio Times. “There are new tricks to the trade – little cushions – and it’s amazing what you can do with a half-inflated netball.”
“If there are two people doing a sex scene, the rule is they must have three barriers separating them and there are certain acts where a half-inflated netball can allow for movement without having to connect physically,” he explained. “It’s pretty silly really and we have some hilarious moments, but it makes it less awkward.”
Simone Ashley
Bailey’s season two scene partner Simone Ashley, who played Kate Sharma, also gave props to the intimacy coordinators on set.
“I am also confident that I can speak up if I’m not feeling comfortable with anything on set,” she told Radio Times. “We were in a very safe environment and we worked with an incredible intimacy coordinator who encouraged us to portray what it is for the female character to experience pleasure. That’s important for us to see, because it’s not like it doesn’t happen.”
India Amarteifio
India Amarteifio, the star of Bridgerton‘s spinoff series Queen Charlotte, also applauded the intimacy coordinators on set.
“They created such a safe space and making us feel as if we actually had a say in some of these scenes. You walk into a room sometimes, and it’s one thing to say, ‘Yeah, you can you can speak freely.’ It’s another thing of actually feeling that,” the rising star told Variety, per Us Weekly. “Everything is in there for a reason. It’s a testament to our team and to Shonda [Rhimes], everyone being just genuine, lovely people and remembering that this is a show and it’s for storyline. We don’t put things in just for the sake of it.”
Nicola Coughlan
Ahead of season three of Bridgerton, Nicola Coughlan already praised the show intimacy coach.
“[We had] an amazing intimacy coordinator, Lizzy Talbot, who was there and she treats it like a stunt,” Coughlan said on the U.K.’s This Morning, per Us Weekly. “[Luke Newton and I] had a lot of say in what we wanted to do as well, which was great. [She’s] more like, ‘What are you comfortable with?’ But Luke and I actually had ideas about how we wanted things to play out, which was great because we really felt like we were in control.”
Shonda Rhimes
Knowing how much the stars of Bridgerton have loved having intimacy coordinators on set, it’s no wonder their creator, Shonda Rhimes, is a big fan of the role.
“I’m very strongly for the fact that we have intimacy coordinators, who can then work with the actors to make sure they’re comfortable in doing everything,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I always say, ‘If you wanna do a love scene in a snowsuit, do a love scene in a snowsuit, we’ll figure it out.’ To let them have that freedom is really empowering for actors.”
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