Gwyneth Paltrow just gave her thoughts on using an intimacy coordinator for the sex scenes in her upcoming movie with Timothée Chalamet, and…I love you, Gwyneth, but I’m seriously tired of this.
For context, the Goop founder is set to make her big return to acting in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, which is slated to release in December. Starring Timmy as the real-life table tennis star Marty Reisman, the film looks set to track the trials and tribulations of his ping-pong career in the 1950s. In October last year, the internet went wild over some paparazzi pictures of Timmy and Gwyneth making out during a scene. And now, in a new cover interview with Vanity Fair, the Oscar winner opened up about her experience on the movie — and how shooting its sex scenes introduced her to the concept of intimacy coordinators for the very first time.
“I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie. There’s a lot— a lot. There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed,” she said before recalling a time when the coordinator asked if she’d be comfortable with a specific move during a sex scene. “I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.’”
It’s noted in the article that Timothée and Gwyneth “all but waved off their intimacy coordinator,” which doesn’t necessarily confirm that they refused one altogether. However, for her part, Gwyneth told VF that she and Timothée were happy to navigate the intimate scenes without too much help.
“We said, ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back,’” she remembered. “I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but… if someone is like, ‘Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here’… I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.” During her sex scenes with Timothée, who is 23 years younger than her, Gwyneth recalled thinking: “Okay, great. I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.”
At this point, I shouldn’t need to explain what an intimacy coordinator is and how important they are, not only when it comes to making the actors feel comfortable but also ensuring that everyone on set feels safe and advocated for — particularly in an industry where sexual exploitation has been well documented. But, just as intimacy coordinators are starting to become the norm, it’s becoming worryingly common for actors to push back against the change — potentially setting back the progress that’s been made to keep people across the industry safe.
In light of this, Gwyneth’s comments have stirred up a lot of criticism, and it’s safe to say people are seriously tired. “this ‘I don’t need intimacy coordinators’ trend needs to stop,” one X user wrote, calling out the normalization of this rhetoric.
“push back against intimacy coordinators will always be weird to me like you are not the only person on set,” read one X post with over 54,000 likes. “you are not the only person filming sex scenes. they are there to protect everyone.” Another person wrote: “if you feel superior to the people who are supposed to be there protecting you AND EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE SET, then you’re the problem.”
There’s also been a lot of criticism over actors like Gwyneth and Jennifer dismissing the need for intimacy coordinators by highlighting how things were done in “their day.” Calling this out, one user wrote: “‘i’m from the era where’ you mean the era where actresses were routinely exploited for and during sex scenes and that’s why we have intimacy coordinators now ?”
In light of this discussion, it’s also important to note that Gwyneth is no stranger to sexual exploitation in Hollywood, having been a key figure in the exposing of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse and the subsequent #MeToo reckoning. (For context, Gwyneth previously said that Weinstein once “screamed” at her “for a long time” after she rejected his sexual advances in a hotel room when she was 22.)
Incidentally, the #MeToo movement is one of the main reasons intimacy coordinators are now commonplace on movie and TV sets, which, in my opinion, brings a certain level of irony to Gwyneth’s comments. When asked in her VF interview how she feels the industry has successfully changed post-#MeToo, she said: “I think so.”
