Intimacy coordinators are the new normal of Hollywood. These intimacy experts help actors to do their job while feeling safe and comfortable while shooting an explicit or intimate scene, however, this was not always the case. Amanda Seyfried recently revealed to Porter magazine that during her initial days as an up-and-coming actor she wished intimacy coordinators had been a norm on set.
Seyfried started her modeling career at the age of eleven and ventured into acting by the age of fifteen with the CBS soap opera As the World Turns. She went on to become a household name with her feature film debut in Mean Girls and ever since has worked on various notable features like Mamma Mia!, Jennifer's Body, Les Misérables, and more. In 2021, she was nominated for Academy Award for the black-and-white biopic Mank and has been recently nominated for the Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy Award for her portrayal of infamous CEO Elizabeth Holmes, in The Dropout. Looking back at her career spanning two decades and the need for intimacy coordinators on sets to help actors speak up for themselves, Seyfried revealed,
Being 19, walking around without my underwear on–like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen? Oh, I know why: I was 19, and I didn’t want to upset anybody, and I wanted to keep my job. That’s why.
The actor’s comments follow the recent remark made by Game of Thrones actor Sean Bean, who in an interview with UK’s Times Magazine implied that coordinators are distracting to him and “spoil the spontaneity” of an intimate scene, demonstrating an archaic thought process. He further landed into a foot-in-mouth situation when he tried to explain that “the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.” Ever since Bean made his remarks, actors like Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Lena Hall (Snowpiercer), director James Gunn and more have come out to stress the importance of having an intimacy coordinator on set.
In a post #MeToo era, intimacy coordinators have become a vital resource for Hollywood sets. While fans enjoy all the power-packed performances by their favorite actors on screen, less was known about their working conditions. As we are now exposed to the darker sides of the profession, providing actors with a safe and comfortable work environment has become a priority and the need for intimacy coordinators can’t be stressed enough.
Check out our interview with Seyfried below: