As one of the first intimacy professionals to be recognized by SAG-AFTRA, Brooke M. Haney has become the go-to when it comes to choreographing sexually charged scenes.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Haney — who’s served as an intimacy coordinator for Mayor of Kingstown, Elsbeth, The Best Man: The Final Chapters, Harlem and East New York — dished on what goes into overseeing sensitive sequences that translate into moments of passion onscreen and, most importantly, creating a safe space for the cast and crew.
“We joke that we’re the only person production hires and pays to tell them no,” Haney told Us while promoting their new book, The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook: Specialties for Stage and Screen. (Haney goes by they/she pronouns.)
Following the #MeToo movement, liaisons for actors and producers on projects where nudity may be involved became more prevalent. “Actors often say that they feel a lot safer with an intimacy coordinator,” Haney, who has acted in the past, shared. “I don’t think of my job as making actors feel safe — I think of it as making actors feel prepared because I can’t define safety for someone else.”
Haney’s job starts with a meeting to understand the “vision” of the scene followed by discovering the “boundaries” of the actors involved.
“[I] meet with the director and producer in advance of shooting, and ask, ‘What’s the vision for this scene?’ because ultimately, they’re the storyteller,” Haney said. “Then I meet with the actor and say, ‘Here’s the vision. What are your thoughts on the scene and what are your boundaries? Do your boundaries align with the way the director wants to tell this story?’”
“If they say, ‘yes’, great, we’re good to go,” Haney continued. However, often, “Actors will have a boundary [so] I’ll go to the director and [say], ‘We have a boundary, here are three other ways I think we can get your idea across in an equally or more compelling way. What do you think?’”
Two crucial elements in helping actors feel comfortable is letting them know what to expect ahead of time and considering the “different kinds of ways people have power,” Haney shared, noting it’s not rare for a rising actor working alongside an A-list star to be eager to impress the people they’re working with.
“There’s times when I work with an actor who [says], ‘I don’t need an intimacy coordinator, I feel totally fine articulating my boundaries,’ and I’m like, ‘Great, my job is not to be your voice,’” Haney continued. “If you feel confident, that’s fantastic, [but] you’re not the only one in the scene.”
Filming threesomes or sex scenes with multiple participants can be more time-consuming and complex. “People’s boundaries can be different with different people or around different actions,” Haney explained, “so it’s important I meet with each person individually and check in with them about everyone they’re working with, and bring us together so we have a group understanding of what’s going to happen.”
Of course, there are certain things that are off-limits when it comes to filming sex scenes (“It’s always fake, so any real sexual act is a no-no,” Haney explained) but showmances can and do happen “quite frequently, honestly,” which makes sense to Haney.
“One of the things we talk about in the book is about, in scenes of trauma and non-consent, asking actors to put their bodies into positions of fear or terror or rage, [that] our bodies don’t know it’s fake physiologically and still feel like they’ve gone through that — it’s similar with intimacy,” Haney explained. “If the screenwriter is giving you all the right words to say, and the choreography is giving you all the best choreography, it can feel really good.”
Still, an intimacy coordinator’s job is to make sure that everything unfolding in production pertains to work. “I’m not going to be in charge of controlling what actors do on their own time. That’s their business,” Haney — who created The Actor’s Warm Down, a 20-minute closure practice for actors who have worked on challenging projects — said. “But when we’re at work, it should never be about their personal relationship, it should be about the characters.”
There is only one goal when it comes to filming sex scenes, says Haney: “The audience should think it’s real and the actors should feel like it’s fake — sort of.”
The Intimacy Coordinator’s Guidebook: Specialties for Stage and Screen is available now.
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