Ewan McGregor has opened up about why it was “necessary” to have an intimacy coordinator present on set during sex scenes with his wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
The pair star together in the Paramount Plus miniseries A Gentleman in Moscow, about a Russian aristocrat who is placed on house arrest and banished to an attic hotel room against the backdrop of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Speaking to the Radio Times, the Star Wars actor was quick to clarify that they still had that support for their bedroom scenes.
“We did have an intimacy coordinator!” he said. “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. It’s an important part of the work now, because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle.”
The actor continued that it brings him some peace of mind when it comes to the acting careers of his daughters Clara and Esther.
“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.’ 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.”
The Moulin Rouge actor is the latest industry star to highlight the importance of intimacy coordinators, following Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Intimacy coordinators first started becoming more commonplace on set in 2017 post #MeToo.
Ewan and fellow actor Mary also played love interests on season three of Fargo.
At the time, Ewan was married to his ex-wife Eve Mavrakis, with whom he shares four children. The pair separated in 2017 after 22 years of marriage. Mary split from her ex-husband Riley Stearns the same year after seven years of marriage.
Ewan and Mary then tied the knot in April 2022, after giving birth to their son Laurie the year prior.