House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke has spoken up in support of intimacy coordinators who can advocate for actors in sex scenes that can feel “really precarious and vulnerable”.
In a new interview, Cooke, 31, talked about filming sex scenes and how women continue to be branded “difficult” if they set boundaries.
“It’s amazing to me that people had to just fudge their way through those scenes before those people existed,” she told The i Paper, on the subject of intimacy coordinators.
Cooke will be seen next in the forthcoming Amazon Prime Video series The Girlfriend, which sees the actor in several intimate scenes.
Sex scenes, while important, put actors in “really precarious and vulnerable situations,” she said.
“Showing intimacy, passion is an integral part of reflecting the human experience,” Cooke said, but added they can feel like “a chunk of yourself has been taken” when care isn’t taken.
Cooke, whose breakout role was in the 2013 Psycho prequel series Bates Motel, also talked about how awkward and embarrassing filming sex scenes can be when one is starting out in the industry.
“[Embarrassment is amplified] for those who are just starting out and don’t have the vocabulary to say what they’re not comfortable with,” Cooke said. “And for women, who’ll often get labelled ‘difficult’ or ‘a bitch’ for speaking up, a [good intimacy coordinator] will sense hesitation and become your voice.”
Employed to help ensure the consent and safety of performers while filming scenes that involve sex or nudity, the role of intimacy coordinators is a relatively new post-MeToo phenomenon that has become increasingly commonplace across the film and TV industries.
A debate has existed around intimacy coordinators in Hollywood for a number of years now, with stars like Ewan McGregor and Emma Thompson calling them “absolutely essential”, whereas Michael Douglas and Jennifer Aniston have expressed doubt.
In December 2024, director Halina Reijn shared how important an intimacy coordinator was while making her film Babygirl, which revolves around the explicit affair between a powerful CEO (Nicole Kidman) and a young intern (Harris Dickinson).
“I’m also against people who are saying, ‘No, my actors didn’t want an intimacy coordinator,’” Reijn told IndieWire. “That makes no sense. It is also for your safety as a director and for everyone. What if there is a misunderstanding? It’s just amazing to have a person like that on set.”
Earlier this year, Gwyneth Paltrow raised eyebrows when she said she refused to work with an intimacy coordinator forMarty Supreme, even though she and costar Timothée Chalamet filmed “a lot of sex”.
“There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed,” she said. Paltrow explained that when Marty Supreme’s intimacy coordinator asked her if she was comfortable with doing a certain move, she responded: “Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.”
“We said, ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back,’” adding that she would “feel, as an artist, very stifled” by the coordinator laying out the moves in a particular shot.
Mam Smith, one of most sought-after intimacy coordinators in Hollywood who most recently worked with Zendaya on racy tennis drama Challengers, and award-winning adult filmmaker Erika Lust, who champions sex-positive porn, have called for professional recognition of the role of intimacy coordinators in key awards ceremonies like the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys.
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