Ewan McGregor Says It Was ‘Necessary’ to Have an Intimacy Coordinator for Sex Scenes with Wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Actors and married couple Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are thankful they had intimacy coordinators on set when filming sex scenes together.

The two star in Showtime limited series “A Gentleman in Moscow,” which teases nudity even in the trailer. McGregor portrays fictional Count Alexander Rostov, who is banished by the Soviets to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol and threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again. Winstead is film actress Anna Urbanova, a visitor to the hotel in the series adapted from Amor Towles’ bestselling novel.

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McGregor told the Radio Times that having an intimacy coordinator on set for his nude scenes opposite Winstead was still “necessary” as it’s “odd” to be intimate with a crew nearby.

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

McGregor also executive produces the series. He noted in the Radio Times interview that an actor the age of his 22-year-old daughter Esther may have felt pressured in the past to agree to perform nude in “unnecessary” scenes sans intimacy coordinators. It is very different these days.

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

McGregor isn’t the only actor to recently speak out on the importance of intimacy coordinators: Kate Winslet reflected on her career in an interview with The New York Times, saying she wished she had an intimacy coordinator for every nude scene she’s ever been in.

“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,” Oscar winner Winslet said. “It would have been nice to have had someone in my corner, because I always had to stand up for myself.”

Winslet added, “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.”

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