Kate Winslet championed intimacy coordinators in a recent interview with The New York Times. The Oscar winner said having an intimacy coordinator on set would’ve benefitted her every time she was required to perform a sexual situation on camera, be it more graphic scenes featuring full frontal nudity or far tamer scenes with just kissing.
“I would have benefited from an intimacy coordinator every single time I had to do a love scene or be partially naked or even a kissing scene,” Winslet said. “It would have been nice to have had someone in my corner, because I always had to stand up for myself.”
Winslet was far from the empowered actor she is now when she was just starting out in Hollywood and wishes she had the courage to speak up as a young performer during intimate scenes to say: “I don’t like that camera angle. I don’t want to stand here full-frontal nude. I don’t want this many people in the room. I want my dressing gown to be closer.”
“Just little things like that,” Winslet explained. “When you’re young, you’re so afraid of pissing people off or coming across as rude or pathetic because you might need those things. So learning to have a voice for oneself in those environments was very, very hard.”
Intimacy coordinators work closely with the director and actors to plan out the choreography of sex scenes or other intimate moments to ensure safety on set and to maintain personal boundaries among the actors. While many performers have championed the role, others have scoffed at it in recent years. Sean Bean generated controversy in 2022 after saying intimacy coordinators “spoil the spontaneity” of shooting a sex scene.
“It would inhibit me more because it’s drawing attention to things,” Bean said of having an intimacy coordinator in the room. “Somebody saying, ‘Do this, put your hands there, while you touch his thing…’ I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.”
Winslet has been making the press rounds in support of her new HBO series “The Regime.” The pilot is now available to stream on Max. New episodes air Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.