Florence Pugh had 'weird and awkward' experience with intimacy coordinator
Florence Pugh has had "good and bad" experiences with intimacy coordinators on her films.
Florence Pugh has blamed an intimacy coordinator for making a sex scene "weird and awkward".
The 29-year-old actress has reflected on her experiences with the professionals, who help to coordinate intimate filming and ensure everyone feels comfortable, and noted that she believes their roles are still figuring out.
Florence said of the profession on The Louis Theroux Podcast: “It’s not to get in the way. It’s not to confuse, it’s not to make things more complicated or make things more awkward. I’ve had good ones and bad ones.”
The We Live in Time star has always been "quite confident" and "quite happy in [her] skin" working without such an expert, and recalled a time when someone on set was "completely inappropriate" to direct a sex scene and there wasn't an intimacy coordinator there to protect her.
She added: "But my view is changing about it as well, because I’m now having fantastic experiences with intimacy coordinators.
“However, that being said, I’ve also had a shit example where someone just made it so weird and so awkward and really wasn’t helpful and kind of was just like wanting to be a part of the set in a way that wasn’t helpful, and I think it’s a job that’s still figuring itself out.”
After an experience with a "great" intimacy coordinator, Florence has found their presence much more useful.
She said: "I will say that I’ve been able to understand better meaning now through working with great ones in sex scenes, finding the story of what it is, what kind of sex is it, how do you touch each other, how long have you been having sex for.
“Everybody’s just kind of working away to chip away at the scene. And I think when I worked with a fantastic coordinator, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve been missing, understanding the dance of intimacy as opposed to just shooting a sex scene.
"There are good ones and bad ones, and it’s through the good ones that I have learned how effective it can really be.”
The Black Widow actress believes it is a "bit stickier" being a woman during filming because "you can’t really be a problem because people will say that you’re a nightmare.”
She added: “I remember I was doing a crying scene and there were just all of these specific beats that I needed to get, and specifically on specific lines.
“And we did it maybe six times, and each time you have to start with no tears and then gear up. So you have to stay in it. And we got it and the director wanted to go again. And when I’m in that state, I’m a bit mushy, so I’m like, ‘Okay, we’ll do it again.' "
As a woman, Florence didn't feel she could speak up and say she didn't want more takes of such an emotionally exhausting scene, but her male co-star made an appeal to the director on her behalf.
She recalled: "My co-star went out to the director and said, ‘Don’t do that, man. Don’t put her through that. She’s got it. We got it. You’ve got the close-up, you’ve got the wide, don’t do that.'
“And I realised when I was in the tent, I was like, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have been able to have said that because that wouldn’t have been received well.'”
