Actresses Speak Out Against Sean Bean Denouncing Intimacy Coordinators

Amanda Seyfried on Intimacy Coordinators
Amanda Seyfried at 'The Dropout' premiere Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty Images
After learning about Sean Bean's stance on intimacy coordinators, many actresses voice why these roles are extremely important on set. 

Actor Sean Bean openly criticized intimacy coordinators recently, and many actresses, including Lena Hall, have a lot to say about his statement. 

Intimacy coordinators have become a vital role in Hollywood that help to create safe environments for the actors by asking what they are comfortable with and planning out a safe and consensual sex scene.   

The Dropout Emmy-nominated actor Amanda Seyfried wishes there were intimacy coordinators when she started her career. When reflecting on her career in an interview with Porter, the actress recalls feeling pressured to shoot nude scenes at a young age. 

Amanda Seyfried as Karen Smith in 'Mean Girls'Credit: Paramount Pictures

“Being 19, walking around without my underwear on—like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen?” Seyfried said. “Oh, I know why. I was 19 and I didn’t want to upset anybody, and I wanted to keep my job. That’s why.” 

After starring in her pivotal roles as Lilly Kane in Veronica Mars, Seyfried landed the role of Karen Smith in the pop-culture phenomenon Mean Girls. It was in this role that Seyfriend previously revealed that she felt “grossed out” by boys coming up to her and asking her for a weather forecast as her character could predict rain using her breasts.

“I was 18 years old. It was just gross,” she told Marie Claire earlier this year. 

Seyfried’s remark on the importance of intimacy coordinators comes after Game of Thrones actor Sean Bean said he was not a fan of intimacy coordinators because they “spoil the spontaneity” of an intimate scene between actors. Bean’s comments sparked disapproval across the board, including West Side Story star Rachel Zegler, who tweeted out that “spontaneity in intimate scenes can be unsafe. Wake up.” 

Other actors have spoken out against Bean’s comment. Jameela Jamil, who plays the villain in Marvel’s upcoming She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, replied to Bean’s remark about sex scenes as “experimental,” writing, “It should only be technical. It’s like a stunt. Our job as actors is to make it not look technical. Nobody wants an impromptu grope…” 

After the interviewer for the U.K.’s Time Magazine informed Bean that intimacy coordinators were a response to the revelations of the #MeToo movement to help actresses feel safe on set, Bean responded, “I suppose it depends on the actress. This one,” referring to his Snowpiercer co-star Lena Hall, “had a musical cabaret background, so she was up for anything.” 

Hall took to Twitter to reply, correcting two points made by Bean.

“Just because I am in theater (not cabaret, but I do perform them every once in a while) does not mean that I am up for anything,” Hall writes. 

Although she felt entirely comfortable with Bean during their intimate scene in Snowpiercer, she reiterates that she does not feel that intimacy coordinators are without purpose in the industry.

“BUT if there is any part of me that is feeling weird, gross, over exposed etc…I will either challenge the necessity of the scene or I’ll want an IC,” Hall writes. 

“I do feel that intimacy coordinators are a welcome addition to the set and think they could also help with the trauma experienced in other scenes. Sometimes you need them, sometimes you don’t but every single person and scene and experience is different,” Hall writes, ending her thoughts on the matter.

There has been a system at play that exploited young or inexperienced actors that many are trying to remove with the addition of intimacy coordinators.

“The role of intimacy coordinators greatly improves safety and well-being on sets and in productions requiring intimate scenes,” said Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA. “Their value is immeasurable and the National Board is committed to bringing intimacy coordinators into the SAG-AFTRA family and ensuring they have the kind of benefits and protections other members already enjoy.”

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.     

Your Comment

13 Comments

Challenge: name a sex scene that is necessary to tell a story that isn't porn.

August 11, 2022 at 12:51PM

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Sex is like eating, a normal aspect of adult life. To say that they are all staged entirely as "porn" is both silly and puritanical. And the implication that it's all for men is just a bad. Sure, sex, violence, and bright sparkly lights all are stimulating, often used in place of a side story. But their presence should not denote a bad film.

August 11, 2022 at 4:34PM

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Douglas Bowker
Animation, Video, Motion-Graphics
532

Porn? No way! Let's reestablish the Hays Code. How good was the past!

August 12, 2022 at 1:34AM

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Javier Diez
Film
240

Good point. Rarely are sex scenes necessary to the story. Usually they come off like the male director's fantasy.

August 12, 2022 at 7:19AM

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That's incorrect... Many times the studios/networks ask you to have a sex scenes/nude quotas for their shows. For example in my experience, for a show I written and directed for HBO some years ago, they told me I needed to include more sex scenes in the scripts, most didnt come from my male director fantasies but from the studio development requirements. Most of the times when you have an intimate scene you can get away with it with only sugesting the action, an extreme close up, shadows, etc... There are many ways to do it without the hassles of having naked people on set, but it will depend on the target audience the network wants the movie/show to hit. If it is a mature audience, problably they will ask you to shoot the scenes in a more explicit manner.

August 15, 2022 at 9:11AM

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Agreed, its not always just the directors male gaze, but the studios "requirements" for the audiences' male gaze, so its ultimately the same shit no matter where it comes from. But yeah, its terrible when a person has to oblige to shit they're not comfortable doing just so they can work... just like the women that did nude/sex scenes they didn't want to just to keep working in this industry.

August 16, 2022 at 2:57AM

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I believe this whole conversation is emblematic of the well documented extreme unprecedented loneliness people are experiencing in this era. Don’t take roles that make you uncomfortable. It is narcissistic to make a work of art bend to an actor’s feefees

August 12, 2022 at 3:28AM

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Aaron Harper
Rental House Manager
495

Tell that to all of the women who were put in the position of having two choices: get naked or get fired. That's a situation you, and Sean Bean, clearly don't understand.

August 12, 2022 at 7:18AM

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There seriously needs to be a way to block condescending, ignorant, misogynist jerks like Aaron here

August 12, 2022 at 11:57PM

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David Patrick Raines
Actor/Writer/Director
659

You're a douchbag Aaron Harper.

August 16, 2022 at 3:04AM

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Sorry, I think the whole thing is silly. First off, what qualifies someone to be an 'intimacy coordinator?" Nothing.
These actresses are over 18. They're adults. They can vote, drive, run for office, fly an airplane, etc. But when it comes to sex, we're supposed to treat all women as children who are absolutely incapable of saying "I don't want to do that." (We're not talking about rape or sexual assault situations here).
The fact that most of those complaining have made millions of dollars and built their careers based someone on being really sexy onscreen and CONSENTING to taking the parts and doing the performances takes a lot of credibility away from their complaints.
A good 'vintage' example is Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
1. She first said she had no idea her privates were going to show up in the film (in spite of the camera at knee level with at least a 500watt light shining directly up her dress)
2. Years later, she claimed it was all her idea.
3. Years after that, she went back to saying she had no idea and was exploited.

The formula is:
1. When you're a nobody, get naked.
2. When your acting craft has improved and you've become a big star, claim that you were exploited and you had no say in the matter (even though you were an adult).

It's interesting that Amanda Seyfried is STILL parading around in her underwear in photos and movies. She's not 19 anymore, she's 37.

August 12, 2022 at 1:57PM

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mp writer-director
Writer/Director/Composer
264

“She was asking for it“
“She knew what she was getting into“
“Why didn’t she say anything then?“
“She’s still getting naked so she has no credibility“

Same argument, different disguise

August 12, 2022 at 11:59PM

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David Patrick Raines
Actor/Writer/Director
659

Intimacy coordinators have nothing to do with qualifications... It's a position created with the purpose of reducing the liability from the production company, stuidos and directors.
Producer cant be in set when sex scenes are being shot, sets are normally closed for this kind of scenes, only directors, camera operators and actors are allowed and video assist feeds are closed. So in case of a legal claim it becomes a he said/ she said situation.
If years later an actor comes forward saying that he/she didn't want to shoot a scene and sues the studio or production company. You have an Intimacy coordinator that can act as a witness in court.
At the end it makes life easier for everyone.

August 15, 2022 at 9:40AM

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