Actor Ewan McGregor said he and his actress wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead had an intimacy coordinator on the set for their sex scene.
McGregor is starring in the coming Paramount Plus drama A Gentleman in Moscow along with Winstead, with whom he has been married since 2022, according to the Independent.
However, despite that they are actually husband and wife, McGregor and Winstead had an intimacy coach for their sex scenes, anyway. And as far as McGregor is concerned, it was wonderful.
Actor union Sag-Aftra describes an intimacy coordinator as “an advocate, a liaison between actors and production, and a movement coach and/or choreographer in regards to nudity and simulated sex and other intimate and hyper-exposed scenes.”
But McGregor says that the coach was nearly as much for the film crew behind the camera as it is for the actors in the scene.
“It’s still necessary, because it’s also about the crew, and it’s odd to be naked in front of people, it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera,” the Star Wars actor explained. “If you were doing a dance scene, you’d have a choreographer. It’s an important part of the work now, because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle.”
Intimacy coaches have become far more common since the #MeToo movement sprang up in 2017. The work of the coaches seems to be set to avoid legal issues for the studios.
For his part, McGregor agreed that such coordinators make everyone more comfortable and safe on a film set. McGregor noted that if his 22-year-old daughter, Esther, was doing a sex scene, he would want a coordinator in charge of the scene.
“If an older, famous director goes to a 22-year-old and says, ‘I want you to be naked in this scene,’ that actress might feel, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to do it, my career might depend on it,'” he said.
“And then five years after that, she could look back and go, ‘I wish I hadn’t. Why am I naked in that scene? It’s unnecessary.’ Now there’s somebody she talks to whose career doesn’t rest on the shoulders of this person,” he added.
McGregor has spoken before about how uncomfortable he is over doing sex scenes.
“I don’t like them very much. They are awkward because it is a strange and bizarre thing to be doing,” he said, especially since most often it is a 40-some year-old or older star with a far younger woman.
Of course, McGregor is 52 and his wife, Winstead, is 39.
In 2022, one Hollywood intimacy coach posted a video on social media to show the tricks that they use in Hollywood to make sure actors get no sensation from the simulated sex acts they are recreating on film. The tools include nipple shields, and other barriers between the actors to act as a “mood killer” to make sure they don’t get too excited.
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