After Jennifer Aniston Sparked Backlash For “Minimizing” The Role Of Intimacy Coordinators, Ewan McGregor Has Highlighted Just How Important They Actually Are

For context, an intimacy coordinator is a professional who choreographs and coordinates intimate or nude scenes in TV shows and movies. 

They advocate for the actors involved and support them on set to ensure they feel comfortable and safe during filming. 

While it isn’t a legal requirement for productions to use intimacy coordinators, it has become a pretty standard practice on most sets in recent years. 

However, Jennifer said that she had no idea what the purpose of an intimacy coordinator was when she was offered one on her Apple TV+ series. 

Jennifer was quickly called out by people who accused her of “minimizing” the importance of intimacy coordinators — especially in light of the #MeToo movement.

And many actors who first found fame before intimacy coordinators became the norm have been vocal about how important they are — with former Boy Meets World child star Rider Strong among those to have expressed how useful one would have been during his early acting years.

“I’ve never worked with one personally, but I totally think that it’s a necessary role because you can’t just trust that a director or a producer is going to have the experience or the delicate tone that is required of that situation,” he continued.

“I think having an assigned person just to navigate that with the actors is great and an essential role,” Rider added. “That’s basically what we are talking about, a need for intimacy coordinators.”

“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,” she told the New York Times. “It would have been nice to have had someone in my corner because I always had to stand up for myself.”

“‘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,’” Kate listed off. “Just little things like that.”

Kate also emphasized how difficult it can be for young actors to speak up for themselves on set through fear of upsetting those above them, saying: “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.”

Despite filming with his real-life spouse, Ewan explained: “It’s still necessary, because it’s also about the crew. And it’s odd to be naked in front of people; it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera.”

"If you were doing a dance scene, you’d have a choreographer,” he pointed out. “It’s an important part of the work now because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle."

"My daughter is 22. If an older, famous director goes to a 22-year-old and says: 'I want you to be naked in this scene,' that actress might feel: ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to do it, my career might depend on it,’” he said. "And then five years after that, she could look back and go: ‘I wish I hadn’t. Why am I naked in that scene? It’s unnecessary.’"

“Now there’s somebody she talks to whose career doesn’t rest on the shoulders of this person,” he concluded. 

Ewan shares Esther with his ex-wife Eve Mavrakis, who he split from in 2017. 

He married Mary in 2022, one year after they welcomed their son, Laurie.