Creating Safe Spaces: ITA O’BRIEN & the Art of Intimacy Coordination - Highlights

Interviewed by Mia Funk

How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process?

Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Tell us about your journey to becoming an intimacy coordinator. Because when you started that role didn't even exist.

ITA O'BRIEN

It's been a very organic journey and one that still surprises me and I feel I'm so grateful for the journey that life has taken me on and subsequently the creation of this work. I was a dancer, and then a musical theatre performer, professionally trained as an actor, and then did the MA in Movement Studies at Central, and worked as a movement teacher and a movement director. During that time I was exploring my own theatre work, and put on my own play called April's Fool, and then was looking at taking that work further and exploring the dynamic of the perpetrator and the victim.

So early 2017, I took the work to (British trade union) Equity. And then, in October 2017, the Weinstein allegations happened, and the industry said we have to do better in the creation of the codes of conduct in that environment. The industry was ready just to listen. And I was there saying within your intention to work with best practice, this is how we work with intimate content. By then, I'd written it into the structure of the Intimacy on Set Guidelines. Then, in 2018, Gentlemen Jack, Sex Education, and Watchmen were the first three productions that I worked on as an intimacy practitioner.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

You've compared it to being a stunt coordinator. But for performers of emotional and intimate content, the injury that can happen can be emotional and psychological.

O'BRIEN

The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated.

For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused.

On the Making of Sex Education

I felt so grateful to be working on content that had the question of consent and open conversation at its core, particularly on the show Sex Education, from my very first conversation with Ben Taylor and Jon Jennings. It's a young cast exploring in-depth, intimate content, and they're saying, we know that we need to be able to really support our young cast. They came to me, and then I shared how we could journey through that. So there was a real awareness of intention to take care, understanding of the challenges of working with such exposing intimate scenes.

Love, Privacy & Intimate Storytelling

My realization is that in our existence as human beings, who we love and how we love them is a pinnacle, isn't it? Who we love. We're all seeking that and finding a partner, and then our expression with that loved one is, is the most beautiful part of who we are as human beings. That is a private act, and it should be private and stay private.

Chronicling the HIV/AIDS Crisis Through It's a Sin

That production was really close to my heart because I was a musical theater dancer in the eighties and so that whole storytelling was something that I personally had lived through and really understood. You know, I was that kid at the Pineapple Dance Studios. And gradually, as friends around me sort of began to become unwell, and actually, one of the first people that I knew who died from HIV was my singing teacher at the time, a guy called Chris Edwards. He was the first person that contracted HIV that I knew, and he died within 18 months. So Russell T. Davies. Peter Hoar, the amazing director, and myself were of the generation who had lived through this, but for the young cast it was something that was about history, so that work of really exploring it was important. And also then, there was a cast member for whom the experience of HIV was a lived experience. I worked with two fantastic intimacy practitioners who were both under mentorship at that point in time, Elle McAlpine and David Thackeray.

Working with Michaela Coel on I May Destroy You

That was such a privilege and a joy to work with Michaela Coel, just to be witness and to support her amazing creative process as a writer, as it being part of her life story, as executive producer, as co director, and then finally as actor. Those kinds of storytellings are really important in that they're told with full-on emotional content that has been intended. We don't want to have to pull back from really showing the ugly side of our humanity if there are really challenging, intimate scenes. How do we make sure, as Michaela said, that we can create a story about abuse without anybody being abused in the process?

Navigating Intimate Storytelling through All Life’s Stages

Menopause. How do we deal with that? Of course, while menopause might seem that it only affects the person who's going through it, it affects everybody in a family. It affects your partner. It affects your children. They need to know what's going on in the body. If you haven't had conversations about the menopause, it's full on. And then intimacy and into our older years, it is right and proper that we stay intimate and loving, and then the question of how we possibly might grow into our older years in our sexuality, I would want to lift the lid off all of that for us to create that content out in the world.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

As you think about the future, the importance of the arts, education, and how we cultivate our emotional intelligence, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?

O’BRIEN

For our art, for our storytelling, what the actor brings to it should be really respected. And the skill and the art of our artists, of our actors, directors, writers – what each individual brings to each part of the creative process. As human beings, that's what we need to stay honoring and respecting and knowing that there can be a place for AI, but we should never take out the human being from the whole process.

Brian Bates, who has explored how actors are the modern-day shamans, writes, "The way of the actor is not an esoteric discipline divorced from everyday life. It is everyday life heightened and lived to the full with an awareness of powers beyond understanding." That's what an actor should be mining into when they explore a character and bringing an awareness of ourselves as humanity.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sam Myers and Halia Reingold. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Sophie Garnier.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Interviews - FEATURED

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Conversation with Showrunner · Creator · Head Writer
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Psychologist
Author of Emotional Intelligence · Optimal · Ecological Intelligence

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DUSTIN O'HALLORAN

Emmy Award-winning · Oscar-nominated Composer · Musician
1 0 0 1 · Silfur · Transparent · Lion

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JEFFREY ROSEN

President & CEO of the National Constitution Center
Author of The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America

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BERTRAND PICCARD

Explorer & Aviator of the First Round-the-World Solar-powered Flight
Founder of Solar Impulse Foundation & Climate Impulse

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ED ZWICK

Academy Award-winning Writer, Director & Producer
Glory · The Last Samurai · Shakespeare in Love · Thirtysomething
Author of NYTimes Bestseller Hits, Flops & Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood

My intention was to write about my experiences, obviously, but also I felt that there was a little bit of a counterintuitive approach, which is to talk about some of the inner experiences of the creative process and being a director, being a writer, and I felt that that would open the window a little bit wider. I liked that it wasn't just a behind-the-scenes look. It is that, and I think it's full of fun anecdotes and little reveals, but it is to be a real book. It presumes to be a memoir, like many of the memoirs that I have loved of creative people in the past.

ALAN POUL

Emmy & Golden Globe-winning Executive Producer · Director
Tokyo Vice · Six Feet Under · Tales of the City · My So-Called Life

I think all great work comes from the need to say something. And so this is the challenge for young artists and also maybe one of the essential elements that can never be completely taken over by AI because there has to be something you feel has not been said, and you feel an urgent need to say it. In fact, you can't not say it. That need to express is what gives birth to unique expression, which is where all of our visual, performance, and creative arts come from.

Featured

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MICHAEL CRONIN

Author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene
Snr. Researcher · Trinity Centre for Literary & Cultural Translation

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CAMILLA HAWTHORNE

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A Black geographic perspective for me was really helpful in trying to clarify how we can simultaneously understand Blackness as a global project, that is anti-national, that transcends borders, but that also takes on really specific meanings and practices in different places, engagements with Black geographies that are looking just beyond the framework of North America.

ITA O'BRIEN

Intimacy Coordinator · Founder of Intimacy on Set
Author of Intimacy On Set Guidelines

SY MONTGOMERY & MATT PATTERSON

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I did know that I wanted this book about turtles to also be about time. It's one of two big questions in philosophy. The one big mystery that I had tackled in a previous book, Soul of an Octopus, was the mystery of consciousness. The other big hard problem in philosophy is time. And I felt, you know, who better to lead me in this exploration than turtles, who live in some cases for centuries, who've been around...they arose with dinosaurs, yet they survived the asteroid impact. They are the embodiment of patience and wisdom.

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Paleoanthropologist · Author of The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature

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PAOLA SPINOZZI

Coordinator, Phd Programme, Environmental Sustainability & Wellbeing · University of Ferrara
Co-editor of Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies

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President of EarthDay.ORG

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PETA U.K. · Senior Vice President
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Founding Member of Climate Change AI
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DR. SHIV SOMESHWAR

Fmr. European Chair for Sustainable Development & Climate Transition · Sciences Po
Development Clinician focused on Cities & Nation States

How do you have economic growth that is socially equitable and environmentally sustainable? It's not just that you have ecological sustainability; hence, that is sustainable development. Because lots of examples of economic, ecological, and ecologically sensitive growth need not be socially equitable. That's why this whole emphasis on just transition is not just about climate, but it's also about justice. It's about social equity in economic growth. Unlike in Europe, where there is now the call for degrowth or a circular economy, most parts of the world would look at you blankly if you talked about degrowth because they are hungry for growth. And so sustainable development is about managing these trade-offs.

From Ancient Wisdom to the Language of the Earth

Scientists, Artists, Psychologists & Spiritual Leaders Share their Stories and insights on the importance of connecting with nature, preserving the environment, embracing diversity, and finding harmony in the world.

JAY JORDAN & ISABELLE FRÉMEAUX

Artists, Activists & Anarchists Seize Wetlands from the French Republic
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DOUG LARSON

Award-winning Scientist · Ecologist · Professor Emeritus · University of Guelph
Author of Cliff Ecology · The Urban Cliff Revolution · The Dogma At My Homework

I think one thing I learned from looking at the ancient trees is that there is no great benefit to anything of growing quickly and accumulating vast resources. Growing slowly and patiently and with fewer demands on the environment in which you live is just as healthy and perhaps more healthy than the endless hunger for more and more and more, which we see as a characteristic of our species.

THOMAS CROWTHER

Ecologist · Founder of Restor
Co-chair of the Board for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

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PETER D. DITLEVSEN

Professor of Physics, Ice, Climate & Earth at the Niels Bohr Institute

What happens if we lose the Greenland ice sheet and pass the tipping points and Earth systems shut down?

If that shuts down, roughly speaking, the climate of Northern Europe would be like the climate of Alaska. So, climate models that actually simulate what happens when it's shut down, would say that England becomes like Northern Norway, which means that food security and things like that will be threatened because you cannot grow many crops in Northern Norway. And other models say precipitation changes, so places that are wet might become dry, and so on. So, these are of course severe consequences for Europe, but in some sense, this is going in the opposite direction of global warming. We're all talking about we're getting into a warmer world, but I'm talking about a cooling here. But the warm water that does not then flow from the tropics into the North Atlantic will stay in the tropics. And there, you're not contra-balancing global warming. There you will have the heating on top of the global warming. And that I see as maybe the largest problem we have is that the tropics become even warmer. And we have to realize if you live in a place where mean temperatures are maybe late thirties Celsius and or rise to the forties livelihood becomes very difficult.

DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ

Psychologist · Author of Why We Work
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KOHEI SAITO

Author of Slow Down! How Degrowth Communism Can Save the World
Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

The Green New Deal presents itself as a kind of radical policy. If you look at the content, it's just simply the continuation of what capitalism wants to do. It's a massive investment in new, allegedly green industries, with the creation of more jobs with higher wages, but these are not the things that socialists or any environmentalists should be actually seeking because we recognize that capitalism is basically the root cause of the climate crisis and the misery of the workers. If so, I think it is high time to imagine something radically very different from business-as-usual capitalism.

The Long Tradition of American Jewish Critiques of Israel & Their Suppression

American Jews were interested and involved in Palestinian rights all the way back to 1948. There's this idea that it came about just now or in the 1970s, but actually as long as there's been a Nakba. As long as there's been Palestinian refugees, there’s been American Jews concerned with that, too. I would say that a lot of times these American Jews were very well informed and spent time in the region, and they came to these conclusions often not in the United States, but over there where they were talking to the Israeli left and meeting Palestinians and seeing a situation that they don't feel is ethical or sustainable.

BEN FRANTA

Founding Head of the Climate Litigation Lab
Senior Research Fellow at University of Oxford’s Sustainable Law Programme

For 40 years, the American Petroleum Institute has hired economists to argue it would be too expensive to try and control fossil fuels and that climate change wasn't that bad. The same go-to consultancy firm has been involved in every major climate policy fight from the very beginning and hired by the fossil fuel industry, but what are the courts going to do? It's not just the historical deception. It's an ongoing deception.

MICHAEL STICKA

President/CEO of the GRAMMY Museum

It's actually right in our mission statement that “we celebrate the music of yesterday and today to inspire the music of tomorrow.” And we do it through our exhibits. We have 35,000 square feet of galleries. We travel exhibits, really, all over the world over the world for the past 15 years. And through our education programs, we really focus on the next generation of music's creators and leaders. We do that through really specific curricula that is designed to educate particularly young people, K-12, about the business of music, especially for those who want to go into the industry.

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