Intimacy coordinators have been a hot topic in Hollywood recently, even more so in the wake of Gwyneth Paltrow’s comments on having ‘a lot of sex’ with Timothee Chalamet in their new movie Marty Supreme.
After taking a hiatus from acting to focus on growing her wellness brand Goop, Paltrow is set to return to the big screen as the wife of a ping-pong star who becomes romantically involved with a younger man, played by Chalamet.
The Avengers star has spoken candidly about the many sex scenes in the film, directed by Josh Safdie, earning some backlash from fans who found her take on the topic more than a little bizarre.
She told Vanity Fair magazine: ‘I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie. There’s a lot – a lot.’
She went on, seemingly dismissive of the concept of intimacy coordinators: ‘There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed … I was like: “Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.”’
The actress continued, saying she and Chalamet didn’t feel the need to rely on the coordinator in their love scenes: ‘We said, “I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back.”’
‘I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but…if someone is like, “Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here,” I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.’
Many people took issue with Paltrow’s comments, with Reddit user hyungwontual writing in a thread about the interview: ‘What’s up with Hollywood stars trying to convince us intimacy coordinators are not necessary?’
User doitforthecocoa agreed: ‘They seem to only be thinking about whether or not they feel comfortable, not considering that things they do could negatively affect their costar. It seems so backward to me sometimes because, above all, an intimacy coordinator is a neutral party that can speak up for either person. To silence them is essentially saying that you don’t want your costar to have an advocate.’
The backlash also comes in the wake of Blake Lively suing her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni for ‘repeated sexual harassment’ and other disturbing behaviour. In response, Baldoni countersued Lively after she submitted the 80-page lawsuit.
In the complaint, Lively alleged she had told producers that she was concerned about Baldoni’s behaviour on set and claimed that he improvised ‘physical intimacy’ scenes without rehearsal or an intimacy coordinator.
While Baldoni denied these accusations, the controversy served to amplify the cultural conversation about intimacy coordinators – and whether they’re truly needed – in a post-#MeToo Hollywood.
What is the purpose of an intimacy coordinator?
Veteran intimacy coordinator Yarit Dor told Refinery 29 about the situations in which an intimacy coordinator should be used: ‘Each practitioner will have a different explanation, but nudity and simulated sex definitely.
‘I also advocate for any scene that has kissing, making out, or snogging because a kiss is never simulated, it’s the real deal. It’s case to case. If there is penetration of the tongue by mistake, one person can feel like it was harassment for them.’
Yarit goes on to describe that she sees her professional duty to be facilitating conversations surrounding physical intimacy while filming, as well as sometimes literally choreographing the scenes themselves to ensure everyone in the scene knows what to expect.
‘Choreography is dependent on the actors; some actors will want to fully choreograph it, some of them will just want facilitation,’ she said.
More than anything, the role of an intimacy coordinator is to protect actors and crew members from feeling uncomfortable, endangered, and exploited – something that has been all too common in the history of show business.
Why are intimacy coordinators important?
There is no other industry in which a person may feel like their job is threatened by refusing to get naked or simulate sex, and yet there are very few protections in place for actors who are in just this situation.
Women are most often – though not exclusively – the victims of this kind of predation, with stories of sexual abuse on set dating all the way back to the golden age of Hollywood.
Marilyn Monroe wrote in Motion Picture Magazine about her experiences filming intimacy scenes: ‘The things a gal has to think up to outwit these predatory males!…Once you’re fairly established as a film actress, it’s open season on you.’
More recently, Lea Seydoux told The Independent of filming Blue is the Warmest Color with director Abdellatif Kechiche, who sometimes made her and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos film sex scenes for 10 hours at a time: ‘Of course, it was kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute. Of course, he uses that sometimes.’
Or there’s the example of Thandiwe Newton, who has stated that she was groomed and sexually abused by director John Duigan on the set of Flirting when she was 16. Duigan allegedly used his power as a director to make up unscripted intimacy scenes and then do things like lie about the framing of her shot and instead take video of her breasts.
Sandra Peabody in The Last House on the Left endured equally vile treatment, with her co-star David Hess allegedly threatening to actually violate her in a rape scene they were about to film. Many people involved in the film later stated how the actress was scared he might actually hurt her and how all her reactions to the ‘simulated’ assault were real.
If Blake Lively’s claims are true, then the lack of an intimacy coordinator on the set of It Ends With Us meant that there was no one to speak up for her when producers allegedly appeared on set when Lively was naked, Baldoni allegedly added a number of unwanted intimate scenes to the script, and was allegedly overly revealing about his sex life and asked about hers.
Regardless of what the court rules about the case, stories like Lively’s are reflective of the experience of too many actors and actresses.
As hyungwontual wrote on Reddit: ‘Intimacy coordinators don’t just [prevent abuse from a person’s] costar but also the other crew around. So many actresses have talked about how when they’d do nude or sex scenes random male crew members, who didn’t even need to be on set, would show up just to see them naked & an intimacy coordinator is also there to prevent this.’
The history of sex scenes in Hollywood is the history of the exploitation of power hierarchies, and performers are made to feel as if keeping their jobs is dependent on staying quiet when things cross a line.
Why is Gwyneth Paltrow against intimacy coordinators?
Paltrow is, tragically, the product of a time in which the path to stardom required keeping quiet about sexual harassment.
When she was 22 years old, she scored the lead in the Jane Austen adaptation of Emma, produced by Harvey Weinstein.
The now-disgraced Hollywood heavyweight scheduled a meeting with the young actress in a hotel suite, eventually attempting to convince her to get into bed for ‘massages.’
‘I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,’ she later said of Weinstein’s advances, which she refused. ‘I thought he was going to fire me.’
Eventually, after she confided in her then-boyfriend Brad Pitt about the incident, Weinstein called her in a rage, insisting she tell no one else about the harassment. ‘I was expected to keep the secret,’ she said.
While one might think Paltrow would be especially supportive of intimacy coordinators and measures to protect young actors from abuse, given her history, it’s also understandable that she’s finding it difficult to adjust to the changing landscape of the industry.
Having endured so many power imbalances early in her career and likely internalizing that these experiences are simply the cost of stardom, she may not realise that risking abuse no longer has to be a compulsory right of passage for young actors.
While Chalamet is a megastar, he’s still a comparative newcomer, arguably more vulnerable to exploitation than Hollywood-royalty Paltrow.
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‘I was like, “Okay, great. I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.”‘ the Shakespeare In Love actress said of meeting Chalamet.
She then referred to him as ‘a thinking man’s sex symbol,’ adding to Vanity Fair: ‘He’s just a very polite, properly raised, I was going to say kid. He’s a man who takes his work really seriously and is a fun partner.’
While the pair’s reversed gender dynamic is certainly not irrelevant to the power dynamic at play, it’s hard not to notice how much Paltrow’s language echoes that of older men in Hollywood describing younger women with whom they’re intimate on screen. It’s dismissive, infantalising, and takes for granted Chalamet’s sense of safety and comfort.
If anything is going to change in Hollywood, it is time that everyone. not just men, accept the hard-fought change that the #MeToo movement brought about – and that means normalising intimacy coordinators.
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