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Sean Bean says intimacy co-ordinators “spoil spontaneity” of sex scenes

The actor opened up in a new interview with The Times

By Nick Reilly

Sean Bean (Picture: YouTube)
Sean Bean (Picture: YouTube)

Game of Thrones actor Sean Bean has said that intimacy coordinators “spoil the spontaneity” of shooting a sex scene for films and TV.

The actor, who portrayed Ned Stark in the hit HBO show, opened up on their role in major productions during a new interview with The Times.

“It would inhibit me more because it’s drawing attention to things,” said Bean of having an intimacy coordinator in the room.

“Somebody saying, ‘Do this, put your hands there, while you touch his thing…”

He went on: “I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.”

In contrast, Bean outlined his experiences filming the explicit 1993 adaptation of Lady Chatterly’s Lover in which he starred with Joely Richardson.

“‘Lady Chatterly’ was spontaneous,” Bean said in his interview with the U.K.’s Times Magazine. “It was a joy. We had a good chemistry between us, and we knew what we were doing was unusual. Because she was married, I was married. But we were following the story. We were trying to portray the truth of what DH Lawrence wrote.”

Bean also went on to criticise censorship of his work, explaining how he had experienced it in the current show Snowpiercer – which contains a season two scene where he, as one half of a couple, use a mango to become intimate.

“I think they cut a bit out actually. Often the best work you do, where you’re trying to push the boundaries, and the very nature of it is experimental, gets censored when TV companies or the advertisers say it’s so much. It’s a nice scene, quite surreal, dream-like and abstract. And mango-esque,” he said.

Asked about the fact that many intimacy co-ordinators were introduced to help actors in the wake of #MeToo, Bean responded: “I suppose it depends on the actress. This one [referring to Hall] had a musical cabaret background, so she was up for anything.”

Bean was speaking ahead of a new BBC Two show called Marriage, which tracks the path of a couple’s long-term relationship.