Actress Allison Williams, who is out promoting her new horror flick “M3GAN 2.0,” is reflecting on her time making the acclaimed and popular HBO series “Girls,” speaking up about how believes having intimacy coordinators on the set would have been “helpful” given how many sex scenes, a huge draw for many views hoped it would be a modern “Sex In The City” for a younger generation, were in the show.
During a recent chat on the Amanda Hirsch podcast “Not Skinny But Not Fat” (via The Wrap), the actress said that they didn’t have intimacy coordinators while filming the hit HBO series as that duty fell on Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner alongside the actors themselves to choreograph those sex scenes ahead of filming (we can imagine how awkward that would have been).
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“We had so many sex scenes to prep and work through,” the actress said on the podcast, adding the caveat that she “loves” intimacy coordinators today. “It would have been so helpful to have someone who’s department head of sex scenes.”
“I have this picture of Lena and Jenni acting out the moment where Desi [played by “The Bear” actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach] was going down on me, eating my ass, and I have a picture of them where I think it’s Jenni is leaning over a windowsill and Lena is leaning behind her like smiling being like, ‘This is what we picture,” Williams said of one experience filming a sex scene. “And I was like, ‘Great!’ but they were busy. That should have been someone else’s job.”
To be fair, the concept when the show was shooting wasn’t exactly an industry-wide thing. With that said, we can’t fault actors like Williams wanting that extra layer of making sure everyone is comfortable, given the vulnerability aspect. Shooting sex scenes can lead to all sorts of complexities and power imbalances, including actors being afraid to speak up if their bosses are the ones calling the shots, as they might feel too intimidated to voice their concerns or desire to tone things down.
In 2022, “Girls” creator Dunham herself echoed some of these similar sentiments about intimacy coordinators to Metro, “I know as an actor sometimes you feel anxious going to the director with a concern, even if you really like them, you just don’t want to be the party pooper – you just have your own self-consciousness,” Dunham said while promoting “Catherine Called Birdy.” “And to have a person there who is devoted to that dialogue and your comfort, I mean, I would have loved to have it on ‘Girls’…I’m just so happy that we’re reaching a time where sets in general are a more carefully monitored thing.”
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Having actors as comfortable as possible on set shouldn’t be that hard of an idea to get behind when you consider the longstanding effort poured into safety on sets when shooting stunts and elaborate action sequences, sex scenes should certainly have that much care put into them with the use of intimacy coordinators.
You can listen to that full exchange with Williams below as she talks about various subjects beyond “Girls.”