Outlander intimacy co-ordinator says cast and crew need broader support

Leading intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey has predicted that productions will create the role of wellbeing co-ordinators to help cast and crew deal with scenes that could impact their mental health.  

Coffey, who has helped choreograph intimate scenes for shows including Amazon Prime Video’s Outlander, Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla, and BBC1’s Rules of the Game, said actors often come to her for advice and support for dealing with scenes that affect their wellbeing.   

“My role has grown into wellbeing more generally,” she said on a Royal Television Society webinar, Getting Intimate: The Evolution of the Intimacy Coordinator. “I think there will be another role in the future that covers this completely.” 

Coffey has been called on, for example, to support actors when it comes to torture scenes, with one having to simulate having their fingers chopped off.  

“This made them feel very vulnerable for around six hours of shooting, despite knowing rationally that nothing would happen to them,” she said. “It is a process to take somebody into that and to take them back out and help them de-role.” 

Coffey believes wellbeing coordinators could also be used to support crew members. 

“The crew also has to experience these scenes over and over again, and sometimes we forget about their mental health as well,” she said.  

Elsewhere, Coffey said there are still “plenty” of obstacles in the way of her doing an effective job as an intimacy co-ordinator on productions, despite the “explosion” of the intimacy co-ordinator since the Harvey Weinstein scandal. 

People in the production can be “affronted” by her questions, which can be blunt but are ultimately designed to prevent actors from being surprised at the last minute. For example, do the characters simulating sex go through to orgasm, and if so, what sounds do they need to make? 

“The stereotypical British director is quite buttoned up, and they can be quite shocked when we have these conversations,” she said.  

She believes that being from Australia works in her favour as it has given her “permission to be more open than others”, while using the “right terminology” is also an important tool.  

“We don’t use titillating language on set,” she said. “We’re talking about breasts, buttocks, intergluteal clefts…it’s quite anatomical.” 

In order to avoid problems, Coffey said she ‘interviews’ key production staff beforehand to work out whether they are the right fit for her. 

“If I feel I am going to get a lot of push back from somebody that will make my job difficult. I want to understand whether we can get to a point of agreement and collaboration,” she said. 

She added that productions are starting to become more aware of the “budgetary need” for intimacy co-ordinators, and she is pleased with increasing use of understanding around a role which has only started to exist within the last five years.  

“It took something as substantial as the Harvey Weinstein scandal for people to look at what was happening on set,” she said. “Now I feel like we are doing really well when it comes to [managing] intimate scenes.”