Ewan McGregor and wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead still used an intimacy coordinator for new show's sex scenes

"It’s odd to be naked in front of people, it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera," the actor explained.

Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead may be married offscreen, but that didn’t stop the couple from using an intimacy coordinator on their new series, A Gentleman in Moscow. 

The actor, who tied the knot with Winstead in 2022, explained in an interview with the U.K.’s RadioTimes why they specifically chose to use an intimacy coordinator when filming the historical drama's sex scenes between his character Count Alexander Rostov and his second wife Anna Urbanova (Winstead).

"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,” 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."

For McGregor, it's also personally important that productions hire intimacy coordinators because his daughters Esther and Clara are also actors and, if needed, they'd have someone to turn to and advocate for them on set.

“My daughter [Esther] 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.’”

He continued, “Now there’s somebody she talks to whose career doesn’t rest on the shoulders of this person."

Discussions surrounding whether or not intimacy coordinators should be on set have divided creatives in recent years. Sean Bean previously said that they "spoil the spontaneity" of the scene, while others like Emma Thompson have described them as "the most fantastic introduction in our work," adding, "There's a camera there and a crew, it's not on your own in a hotel room. You're surrounded by a bunch of blokes carrying things. So, it's not a comfortable situation, full stop."

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