‘Very strange and very confusing’: Florence Pugh says intimacy coordinator is ‘a job that’s still figuring itself out’ | film

Florence Pugh has had both positive and negative experiences with intimacy coordinators, saying some were “wonderful” and “effective”, while others were “trashy” and “weird”.

Pugh was speaking on the Louis Theroux Podcast and Theroux asked her how she felt about their role.

Pugh said she “had good scenes and bad”, “I did a lot of my own sex scenes before it was even a job. I’m quite confident, very happy in my own skin and I’ve always been able to make sure people hear me. However, there are a lot of things that I remember that were completely inappropriate – to be asked to do that, or to be directed that way.”

“But my perspective is changing on this as well, because now I’m having great experiences with intimacy coordinators. However, I also had a bad example where someone made it very awkward and very awkward and wasn’t really helpful, and it was more like wanting to be part of the group in a way that wasn’t helpful.”

“It’s a job that’s still discovering itself,” Pugh added. “But I will say that I’ve now been able to understand the meaning better by working with great people.” [intimacy coordinators] In sex scenes. Find the story of what it is, what kind of sex it is, how you touch each other, how long you’ve been having sex. All of these things are really important, when you’re trying to build a relationship that’s been going on for 10 years. I never thought about it that way before, because the sex scenes are so embarrassing for everyone on set.

Pugh joined a number of notable figures to comment on the role of intimacy coordinators in film shoots. Jennifer Lawrence said she turned down the option of using one for her sex scenes in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love as star Robert Pattinson was “not a pervert”, while Mickey Madison, who won a best actress Oscar for her lead role as a sex worker in Sean Baker’s Anora, said she filmed scenes without an intimacy coordinator, saying she and co-star Mark Edelstein “decided it would be better to keep it”. “Small.”

Gwyneth Paltrow also said she was unhappy with the intimacy coordinator’s input in the sex scenes she filmed with Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme, saying she felt “as an artist, very stifled.”

Madison and Paltrow’s comments led to a backlash, with Channel 4’s former head of drama, Caroline Holick, branding Paltrow “irresponsible”. Pugh’s stance is more conciliatory: “When I worked with a great DJ, I said to myself, ‘Oh, this is what I was missing, understanding the dance of intimacy’ rather than just shooting a sex scene. There are good things and bad things, and through the good things I learned how effective that really is,” he says.