Michael Douglas Says Intimacy Coordinators Are 'Taking Control Away From Filmmakers'
Michael Douglas is still wrestling with the introduction of intimacy coordinators on film sets.
The veteran actor starred in some of the most erotic thrillers of his time, including “Fatal Attraction” (1987) and “Basic Instinct” (1992), but recalls working through those sex scenes with his female co-stars — and isn’t quite sure about the industry’s sea change.
“I’m past the age where I’ve got to worry about that,” he told “Radio Times” on Tuesday, per The Telegraph. “But it’s interesting with all the intimacy coordinators. It feels like executives taking control away from filmmakers — but there have been some terrible faux pas and harassment.”
“Sex scenes are like fight scenes, it’s all choreographed,” Douglas continued. “In my experience, you take responsibility as the man to make sure the woman is comfortable, you talk through it. You say, ‘OK, I’m gonna touch you here if that’s all right.’”
The actor explained that, while this is a “very slow” process, the end product “looks like it’s happening organically” and results in the “good acting” being pursued in the first place.
He previously criticized the use of intimacy coordinators from a different angle, however.
Douglas told The Telegraph last month that people on set used to “take care” of people who “overstepped their boundaries” during sex scenes themselves, and that intimacy coordinators might not be needed — as any harasser “would get a reputation.”
Film studios and television networks started using intimacy coordinators precisely because this wasn’t enough, however, and countless women spoke out during the Me Too reckoning in Hollywood about feeling uncomfortable on set during their sex scenes.
The subject has certainly divided parts of the industry, with “Game of Thrones” star Sean Bean claiming intimacy coordinators “inhibit” the acting process — and women like Kate Winslet wishing there was access to the resource in the heyday of her onscreen career.
Douglas called himself “the expert on sex scenes” last year, and certainly sent many of them to celluloid with the likes of Glenn Close, Sharon Stone and Demi Moore. He addressed that fact in April — but left listeners hanging.
“I talked to the ladies,” he told The Telegraph at the time, “[because] I did a few of those sex movies — sexual movies — and we joke about it now, what it would have been like to have an intimacy coordinator working with us…”
