After SAG-AFTRA opened membership to intimacy coordinators back in July, actor Sean Bean slammed the practice for spoiling the “spontaneity” of love scenes for film and TV shows. “It would inhibit me more because it’s drawing attention to things,” the “Game of Thrones” alum told U.K.’s Times Magazine (via Variety). “Somebody saying, ‘Do this, put your hands there, while you touch his thing…’” He said, “I should imagine it slows down the thrust of it. Ha, not the thrust, that’s the wrong word. It would spoil the spontaneity.” Bean added, “I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.” The actor praised the steamy 1993 adaptation of “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,” which he starred in opposite Joely Richardson, for being truly “spontaneous” and a “joy” to work on.
“We had a good chemistry between us,” Bean said of Richardson. “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.” Years later, after a scrapped sequence for the “Snowpiercer” series involved a nude scene with the intimate use of a mango fruit, Bean spoke out about the censorship on TV today. “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,” Bean said. “It’s a nice scene, quite surreal, dream-like and abstract. And mango-esque.” And his “Snowpiercer” co-star Lena Hall was “up for anything” given her musical cabaret background, as Bean explained, citing that the effect of intimacy coordinators “depends on the actress.” Bean’s comments come after “Game of Thrones” prequel series “House of the Dragon” has already made waves addressing the depiction of sexual violence. Co-showrunner and director Miguel Sapochnik previously told The Hollywood Reporter sexual assault is still very much present in this time around. “[We] don’t shy away from it,” Sapochnik explained. “If anything, we’re going to shine a light on that aspect. You can’t ignore the violence that was perpetrated on women by men in that time. It shouldn’t be downplayed and it shouldn’t be glorified.” Yet executive producer and writer Sara Hess later clarified that the series will “not depict sexual violence” and instead “handle one instance off-screen, and show the aftermath and impact on the victim and the mother of the perpetrator.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
