After first believing that intimacy coordinators would “dampen down the sense of passion,” Gillian Anderson has stated that she now supports their presence on movie sets. In a recent interview with Glamour, the actor and her co-star, Lola Petticrew, discussed the upcoming Channel 4 drama Trespasses, which is based on Louise Kennedy’s original novel and tells the tale of a Catholic teacher who falls in love with a Protestant lawyer who defends IRA suspects in 1970s Belfast.
The romance between Cushla and Michael, the two main protagonists, is a significant aspect of the series’ plot and was developed with the assistance of an intimacy coordinator. Anderson, who portrays Cushla’s mother, Gina, stated that she initially had doubts about playing a person of such competence on set.
She added her queries and elaborated, “I’ve had scenes where I’ve thought [having an intimacy co-ordinator] is gonna dampen down the sense of passion. I mean, not that scenes on camera end up being actually properly passionate because very often they’re so technical, [but] intimacy co-ordinators actually suggest things for a scene that you’re like, ‘oh yeah, whoa, yes, I can try that’. [Using them] doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to suddenly get tame.”
Petticrew also contributed to the conversation, “It’s something that the industry was missing for a long time. I understand that some people might feel like they don’t need one, but I think it’s important that they’re there in case anyway, just like there might not be a fire, but you have a fire safety person and an extinguisher just in case.”