Over the past decade or so, intimacy coordinators have become a staple on movie sets where love scenes are being filmed. The urgency to have them on set has increased significantly since the #MeToo movement rocked Hollywood in late 2017. But some who have worked in the industry for a while have been skeptical about their usefulness. Sean Bean, for example, said he felt intimacy coordinators ruined “spontaneity” and “chemistry” between actors.
Now Richard Gere has joined their ranks. In an interview with The Wrap about the Paramount+ Spy series “The Agency,” Gere spoke alongside his fellow actors on the show Michael Fassbender, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Jeffrey Wright. Fassbender and Turner-Smith play lovers, and both actors strongly endorsed the role of their on-set intimacy coordinator.
Fassbender said, “A lot of the time, directors don’t tell you what they want you to do and you’re left to your own devices. But it’s like doing a fight sequence now. It’s like, ‘OK, are you comfortable with me touching your chest or your butt?’ Or whatever.” To that, Turner-Smith added that intimacy coordinators “should be there for [actors] like a stunt coordinator. You wouldn’t do an untaught stunt.”
The Wrap interviewer Steve Pond noted how different this approach is when the actor was in several steamy films, such as “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “American Gigolo.”
“I don’t think it would have worked then, to tell you the truth,” Gere said, noting that he has never had Fassbender’s experience with directors who give no more direction for sex scenes than “you go, guys.” Fassbender also said he has never felt comfortable discussing the choreography of sex scenes with his scene partner beforehand and that having the intermediary of the intimacy coordinator helps.
“See, in the ’80s, we were comfortable that way,” Gere said of discussing the mechanics of a sex scene with the actor you’re having the scene with.
It’s an intriguing moment in the interview, and it speaks volumes about how things have changed on set over the past decade. That said, there are still some up-and-coming actors who have opted to go without intimacy coordinators. Mikey Madison caused quite a stir by refusing an intimacy coordinator for his many sex scenes in “Anora.”
“I always felt comfortable, and I also think because Ani was, too,” Madison told The New York Times last fall . “For me, it was never a thought in my head to be nervous or anything like that.”
Its director, Sean Baker, has said he feels intimacy coordinators should be there on a case-by-case basis. Famously, for “Anora,” he and his wife Samantha Quan ran the intimate scenes in question for Madison and her co-stars in the Best Picture-winning film before the cameras started rolling.
For Gere’s part, he echoes Michael Douglas, who said he thinks on-set intimacy coordinators are another way to “take control away from the filmmakers.” Meanwhile, Kim Basinger said, “I can’t imagine anyone coming up to me and saying, ‘Do you mind if they put their hand in here?'” And director Mia Hansen-Love suggested that intimacy coordinators are “virtue police.” On the other hand, Michelle Williams found the experience of working with one “extremely worthwhile.”
