COMMENT
Richard Armitage: Sex scenes used to be really awkward. That’s why I welcome the intimacy co-ordinator

The actor, who stars in Netflix’s upcoming erotic thriller Obsession, on his first experience of a properly managed on-set clinch

RICHARD ARMITAGE
5 April 2023 • 7:00am
Naked truth: Richard Armitage bares all in the new Netflix drama Obsession

Last month, Mountview Theatre School, in south London, announced it will offer an Intimacy Practice Degree Course, developed by Ita O’Brien who is one of the world’s leading intimacy co-ordinators, having worked on dozens of films and TV shows, including Sex Education and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. To the layperson, this might sound like just another convoluted attempt to apply a scientific approach to something artistic, or worse, an official move towards legitimising something which flies in the face of uninhibited creativity. But to others it’s a necessary step forward in an area of the film, TV and theatre industries that has been left unchecked for too long.

In my career as an actor, I’ve been asked to throw many violent punches (Spooks), shoot an arsenal of automatic weapons (Strike Back), get familiar with a variety of swords and various implements of torture (Robin Hood, The Hobbit, Pilgrimage) and I once even glued a man to a wheelchair and bit his face off while wearing a pair of grotesque dentures (Hannibal). But it was never quite met with the same embarrassment as a sex scene. It seems we’re OK with depictions of violence but get sweaty palms when we are dealing with intimacy.

I can tell you of a director who was nervous about how to film a certain scene requiring intimacy. “I’ll leave the camera running. Just keep going, I won’t cut,” they shouted from behind the monitor in another room, well away from the closed set. Hmm … thanks a lot. That would never work in a fight sequence … “Just get in there and throw some punches, I won’t cut.” To me, there is no difference.



I think shame has a lot to do with it. The raised eyebrows and tightly folded arms that seem to accompany conversations about on-screen eroticism have, to me, always felt a bit reductive, prudish even. What are we so embarrassed about? “Do as the French do,” I have told myself. “It’s the body, its life… pfftt.” (Spoken with the accent and the pouted lips.)

I have played a number of intimate scenes over the years. I’ve worked with actors who are comfortable and those who have retreated somewhere else in their head until the ordeal is over. Anecdotally, I’ve heard about giggles from the sidelines, comments and compliments on body parts. And then there was the assistant director who clapped their hands together and exclaimed, ‘Right, here come the t-ts!’.


Thankfully, there is now a cultural shift. Intimacy co-ordinators have been around, believe it or not, since about 2015, advising on all aspects of sexuality, both frivolous and dark. My work on a new show for Netflix, Obsession, was my first opportunity to work with one and I needed to put my past experiences, both good and bad, behind me.

Described as an elegant and bold investigation into an erotic, obsessive affair between my character, William, a celebrated surgeon, and Anna, the fiancée of his own son, Obsession was pitched to me with a sense of trepidation. “It’s going to be a challenge, physically. It’s nudity parity” (that’s industry speak for full kit off for male and female actors). Luckily, we had Adelaide Waldrop: part director, part psychologist, part choreographer. Her approach to the work completely changed my viewpoint. I’d heard other actors talking about the restriction they felt working with intimacy co-ordinators, that they “policed the work rather than released the work”.

I discovered this couldn’t have been further from the truth. With a healthy chunk of rehearsal time, we were able to construct a map of investigation for the physical journey on which Anna (played by Charlie Murphy) and William embark. We studied sculpture, dance, poetry, anything we felt might help provide shape and inspiration for the characters’ physical vocabulary, as they ascend towards their fatal attraction.


It also helped that my screen partner, Charlie, made me laugh so much on set that I nearly cracked a (naked) rib. My goal was to finish each working day, proud of what we had done, knowing that Charlie was going home feeling great about herself and her work.

So let’s hope the stifled sniggering and unhelpful jokes are a thing of the past. We must remember that an actor may not have had any sexual experience or might be playing a character who is not of the same sexuality or gender with which they identify in their real life – but now, in an area of our work where we were once left alone, we have a guiding hand.

Obsession is on Netflix from April 13th