AN in DEPTH CONVERSATION with ITA O’BRIEN

A deeply honest conversation between our founder Gillian Anderson and pioneering intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien, whose book ‘Intimacy - A field guide to finding connection and feeling your deep desires’ is released on June 5, 2025.

“Intimacy is not the icing on the story,” Ita O’Brien tells us, her voice carrying the calm certainty of someone who has tested every line of her philosophy on rehearsal-room floors. “It is the story. Or at least the moment when two stories meet.”

Across the Zoom mosaic, Gillian Anderson laughs in immediate recognition. “Yes! And for years the moment those stories met was basically, ‘All right then—clothes off, camera’s rolling.’”
She mimics the brisk clap a director might have used to summon her to set. Action, disrobe, improvise desire.

What follows between these two women—one who pioneered the job of intimacy coordinator; the other who has spent three decades in front of lenses both with and without that protection—is less an interview than a call-and-response. Together they trace the arc of a quiet revolution: how a fringe movement teacher wrote a set of guidelines and, almost by accident, redrew the way film and television hold bodies, consent and power.

A PLAY, A PERPETRATOR, A QUESTION

O’Brien’s origin myth does not begin with policy meetings or Hollywood hashtags. It begins, like many origin myths, with a wound.

“I wrote a play in 2009. It touched a vein in my own family history—perpetrator on one side, victim on the other. When I finished the run I thought: this is a dynamic that demands deeper exploration. So I devoted two full summers to pulling it apart in research and development workshops.”

The question she kept circling was maddeningly simple: How do I ask actors to dive into trauma without leaving bruises on the way out? Her answer fused half a lifetime of disciplines—dance, musical theatre, Bristol Old Vic acting, massage therapy, an MA in movement studies, body-mind centering—into a practice that felt more like stewardship than choreography.

By April 2015 she was road-testing her structure at London’s drama schools. Students loved it; visiting directors were cautious but curious. Two years later she typed the whole thing into a PDF titled “Intimacy On Set Guidelines.” Then, in October 2017, Harvey Weinstein’s crimes detonated in public view and the industry went looking—desperately—for exactly what she had already built.

DIVING IN AT THE DEEP END

“Sex Education rang first,” she remembers. “Then Gentleman Jack. Two scripts, both fearless. On Sex Education I said, ‘Give me one day with the full company.’ So, on the 25th April 2018 we pushed the desks aside, sat in a circle—producers, DOPs, first ADs, cast—shared our worst and best experiences, then got on our feet. Little vignettes of each intimate scene, mapped beat by beat.”

Anderson whistles. “That’s some deep end, Ita.”

O’Brien grins. “I know. But by sundown some of that choreography stayed—lifted straight from the workshop to the series. I walked out thinking, “This was a groundbreaking workshop, a first in the industry!”

Within three years an intimacy coordinator was as common on a call sheet as a stunt lead. The speed still startles her. “People say, ‘You jumped on the bandwagon fast.’ I tell them, ‘No— the bandwagon crashed into me. I’d already laid the track.’”

“SO THE SCENE CAN SING”

Anderson’s own litany of pre-IC memories is grimly familiar: twenty strangers in the room, a naked co-star, boom-mic shadows creeping across her skin.

“There were no closed sets, no choreography,” she says. “Directors would mumble something like, ‘Maybe grab her tits?’ and we’d go for it. That lingering ick the audience feels? It’s probably your body picking up the actor’s discomfort.”

O’Brien nods hard. “People tell me, ‘Your job is to keep actors safe.’ That’s not the point. A stunt coordinator’s job isn’t just safety — the focus of a good stunt coordinator or the focus of a good choreographer is to make either a brilliant dance or a brilliant stunt or a brilliant fight. Inherent in the process is safety.”

Language matters. O’Brien refuses the vocabulary of prohibition—no red lines, no can’t, no won’t. Instead she asks every performer, privately, “What are your requirements?”

“Once an actor states their requirements—nudity yes or no, modesty garments, where touch lands—they’re free. I call it ‘free-flow’. The character may be awkward, but the actor is grounded. The camera feels the difference.”

Watch the fumbling joy of Sex Education or the torrid, button-straining hunger of Gentleman Jack you can almost see the hinge click: consent on set becomes craft becomes story.

Think Otis and Maeve’s painfully sweet first kiss, or Aimee’s masturbation montage in Sex Ed season 1 -- the characters may flail, but the actors are grounded. The audience can relax and—crucially—feel.

A RIGHT TO FIRST CUT

Perhaps O’Brien’s most radical act is quietly administrative: actors must see their intimate footage before the world does.

“One performer woke up after an otherwise joyous shoot feeling she’d given too much nudity,” O’Brien recalls. “We screened a rough cut. She sat with a support person, called her agent, came back and said, ‘Use that shot, lose this.’ We did.”

Anderson’s response clearly shows why this is such a radical and needed act: “In thirty years no one has ever invited me to watch my own sex scenes. That should be written in stone.”

Portraying when intimacy turns to assault demands and requires choreography. O’Brien starts with the script’s why: if an assault doesn’t advance character or plot, scrap it. If it does, de-romanticise the act—strip it to movement counts, reverse energy, clear beats—then rehearse until muscle memory overrides emotion.

Only once cameras roll do actors layer back the power dynamics and pain. Two or three takes, tops. Afterwards comes closure: a high-five, a breath, a sunlight walk, plus a 24-hour follow-up text in case delayed distress surfaces.

THE POWER OF NO

Beyond studios, O’Brien teaches a workshop called The Power of No—sound the word from base chakra to crown, feel its different colours.

“Practise it,” she insists. “Say no from your gut, your heart, your throat. Notice the quality. It’s exhilarating.”

Anderson’s voice catches. “It makes me emotional. Imagine if every teenager learned that in school.”

Because the challenges actors face onset—blurred lines, unspoken pressure, fear of repercussions—mirror those many of us navigate in bedrooms, boardrooms and digital life. O’Brien’s advice translates seamlessly:

Listen inward. The micro-moment you shift from empowered to vulnerable is your cue.

State requirements, not apologies. “I need the door open,” lands far better than “Sorry, could we maybe…”

Find an ally. If direct confrontation feels risky, step away and loop in the person with authority to intervene.

Debrief. Honour the adrenaline crash; congratulate yourself for speaking.

The importance - and power - of learning and practicing to say no, applies to the smaller moments on set, and in life, not only the big moments. Unsafe flirtation on set, a photographer who wants more than a picture or the small punishments that follow a woman who sets a boundary.

“There are people who energetically penetrate you,” Anderson says. “Not sexual, exactly. Predatory attention that leaves no place to stand. No place to feel safe.”

“Step back,” O’Brien counsels. “Find the ally with authority—first AD, producer, union rep—let them intervene. Honour yourself first; art can only thrive on that foundation.”

Both women worry that a generation raised on screens is starving for the gentle, pre-sexual tissue that binds bodies together.

“Our daily intimacy lives on the phone,” Anderson muses. “We skip the foreplay of ordinary connection, so full-throttle sex on screen feels violent, not delicious.”

O’Brien agrees—but pushes further. “We also need writing that centres female pleasure and pacing. The problem isn’t the so-called male gaze; it’s that it’s the unconscious default for everyone. Let’s diversify the gaze, not demonise one flavour.”

TEACHING THE NEXT STORYTELLERS

In O’Brien’s new book ‘Intimacy: A field guide to finding connection and feeling your deep desires’, Chapter 9 - Sex Education discusses consent and positive sex education curriculum for schools: active yes-and-no, body literacy, peer-friendly language. She wants parents in the room too. “We are bodies built for pleasure,” she says, “but pleasure without permission is a hollow echo.”

Anderson nods. “Self-care still sounds indulgent to young people. Yet it’s the only way to keep showing up open enough to create.”

Near the end of the call, O’Brien compares the bloodstream’s arterial surge with its gentler venous return—work and rest, give and receive. “For years I could explode outward on stage but had no clue how to flow back.” She smiles, palms pressed together. “I’m learning.”

Anderson mirrors the gesture. “Me too.”

Between them hangs a conviction that feels, in 2025, quietly revolutionary: that honouring one’s physical and emotional boundaries is not an obstacle to art but its ignition switch. The show does not simply go on. It goes on better—clearer, wilder, truer—when everybody involved knows it can say yes, can say no, and will be heard the moment it speaks.

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