Intimacy coordinator revealed how actors stop themselves from getting aroused during sex scenes
Topics: Film and TV, US News, News, Sex and Relationships
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Film and TV, US News, News, Sex and Relationships
An intimacy co-ordinator has opened up about how they stop actors from having an embarrassing moment while filming intimate scenes.
Acting can be a very unusual profession - after all, few jobs require you to portray what can be very emotionally or physically intimate moments with your colleagues.
Intimacy coordinators have grown in popularity in recent years.
The aim of the job is to make sure that everyone involved in the scene feels comfortable, as well as actually helping them to portray the scene as well as possible.
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This is a professional environment though, and even though there are lights everywhere and crew watching, things can happen.
While an actor understands that the sex scene they're filming is pretend, certain parts of their body might not be, which could lead to an awkward moment on set.
Now, an intimacy coordinator, who has worked on several projects, including Elsbeth, Mayor of Kingstown and Harlem, has revealed how to deal with this if it happens.
Speaking to US Weekly, Brooke M. Haney shared that the combination of a crew, lights, and the professional setting means that this isn't as common an occurrence as you might think.
They said: "Here’s the thing - this isn’t actually very common. We’re at work, right? With the lights bearing down, microphones, a couple of cameras in your face, director, DP [director of photography] and other necessary crew watching on monitors, it’s just not that sexy."
But despite all that, as we mentioned before, sometimes the body just reacts to things despite us not wanting it to do that.
"However, sometimes bodies have physiological responses that are outside of our control," Haney explained.
After all, it's not like someone can just go and take a cold shower in the middle of filming.
An erection is caused by blood flow to the penis, so Haney explained that if you can divert blood flow away from there, then things will calm down.
"When that does happen, I tell the actor to do a few push-ups or some jumping jacks," they said. "That moves the blood to a different location and we’re all good."
While Haney acknowledged that they have seen some onscreen romances become real-world ones, they added that their job is to keep things professional.
"One of the jobs of an intimacy coordinator is to make sure that we are making everything on set be work, and part of that can be ‘closure practices,’ particularly when I work with younger actors," they said.
While some films carefully craft scenes just for the camera, others actually involve the real deal and feature unsimulated sex scenes.
Vincent Gallo wrote, directed and starred in his 2003 film The Brown Bunny alongside Chloë Sevigny.
A scene that drew significant controversy at the time shows Sevigny’s character performing unsimulated oral sex on Gallo, something the actor later said was 'very complicated'.
In 2001, she told Playboy that the scene elicited 'a lot of emotions', adding: "I'll probably have to go to therapy at some point."
However, Sevigny went on to say: "But I love Vincent. The film is tragic and beautiful, and I'm proud of it and my performance.
"I'm sad that people think one way of the movie, but what can you do? I've done many explicit sex scenes, but I'm not that interested in doing any more. I'm more self-aware now and wouldn't be able to be as free, so why even do it?"
In 2008’s Little Ashes, Robert Pattinson starred as Spanish artist Salvador Dalí and, in one scene, actually pleasured himself on camera.
The actor later told Interview magazine his orgasm face was 'recorded for eternity'.
Unable to fake it, Pattinson added: "Try it. I can tell you right now, no chance. It just doesn’t work.
"So I rubbed one out in front of the camera."
In an interview with Conan O'Brien, Aubrey Plaza said that she originally thought her hand would just 'slowly go out of frame' as her character got to know her body in The To-Do List.
However, when she showed up on the set of the 2013 flick, it was a 'whole different thing'.
She recalled: "I asked the director 'What should I do?' and she said, 'Masturbate like it says in the script."
2004's 9 Songs sees Kieran O'Brien and Margo Stilley engage in several sex scenes - something the latter has defended.
Addressing the heavy backlash the film received, Stilley told LADbible: "It's a shame that it's been torn apart into these little pieces and bastardised online, to be honest."
In the 2001 release Intimacy, the actors take part in an unsimulated oral sex scene.
Looking back, Mark Rylance revealed it was the 'most difficult job' he's taken on in his career.
He explained: "I was convinced it was a vital story about the difficulties people face finding intimacy in a big city like London.
"Hanif Kureishi's writing couldn't have been more intimate and revealing, but I found the making of the film and the subsequent publicity and personal attacks very, very painful. I wish I hadn't made it."
Kerry Fox, on the other hand, said it was 'not one of her regrets'.