Real-Life Couple Used an Intimacy Coordinator on Set

There's a crew watching, Ewan McGregor points out
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 20, 2024 7:05 PM CDT
Real-Life Couple Used an Intimacy Coordinator on Set
Ewan McGregor, right, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead attend the premiere of "Raymond & Ray" at Roy Thomson Hall during the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022.   (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

"If you were doing a dance scene, you'd have a choreographer," Ewan McGregor said. So he didn't see the presence of an intimacy coordinator on the set as superfluous when he filmed certain scenes with Mary Elizabeth Winstead—though the two are married. The actor explained the rationale during an interview with Radio Times about their upcoming Paramount+ with Showtime series, A Gentleman in Moscow. Even for actors who are a couple, an intimacy coordinator is "still necessary, because it's also about the crew," McGregor said. "And it's odd to be naked in front of people, it's odd to be intimate in front of the camera."

And the position provides protection for younger actors, he said, citing his 22-year-old daughter Esther as an example. "If an older, famous director goes to a 22-year-old and says, 'I want you to be naked in this scene,' that actress might feel, 'Oh, my God, I've got to do it, my career might depend on it,'" McGregor said, per Variety. A coordinator gives her someone to consult "whose career doesn't rest on the shoulders of this person," he added. The series starring Winstead and McGregor, who married in April 2022, per People, is based on the 2016 novel by Amor Towle. It premieres on March 29 on Paramount+ and March 31 on Showtime. (More Ewan McGregor stories.)

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