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This is Later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast More what you Hear Weekday

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Afternoon's on the Drive. Brook Haney
is an intimacy coordinator. We'll get into

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that in just a minute. She's
reading a book about it called called The

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Intimacy Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook Specialties for Stage
and Scream. Let's start Brook with what

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you do for a living. When
you were a young girl and were asked,

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what do you want to be when
you grow up, did you say

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I want to be an intimacy coordinator? Thanks for having me, Lee.

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I think when I was a young
kid growing up, I wanted to be

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a stunt horseback rider. I would
climb the apple trees in my parents,

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my aunts and uncle's farm and wait
for the cows to walk underneath, and

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then like lower myself onto a cow
and ride around and try to convince my

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parents to get me a horse.
Oh, alpathetic. You couldn't even have

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a horse, you had to ride
cows. But yeah, no, I

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did not know. But then this
career didn't exist at that time. I

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feel incredibly lucky that intimacy coordinating came
along in my lifetime and part of the

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reason I wrote the book, The
Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook is because there's almost no

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literature on it so far. I
think this is maybe the seventh book that's

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ever been written on the subject.
I think it's something Hollywood didn't want us

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to know about for a long long
time, because that as things changed and

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codes were broken and rewritten and and
bard boundaries were pushed. I don't know

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that the film industry wanted us to
know that they had to put this much

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into filming an intimate scene. Oh
that's so interesting. Yeah, because on

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one hand, you want the audience
to assume it's real and assume that it's

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easy and that it's chemistry, when
in reality, it's pro and being at

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a certain angle, and you know, just it's very technical. So yeah,

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I think I think that if you
really learned about it, if if

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the regular film or TV watcher reads
my book, it will destroy some of

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the magic. Hopefully it'll also be
fascinating, but it will destroy some of

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the magic because it is technical.
Some of the sexiest scenes you've ever seen

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were very unsexy to film because it's
really technical. Intimacy Intimacy Coordinator's guide Book,

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Intimacy coordinator Brooke Haney is revealing how
sex scenes are staged and how actors

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are protected. Let's start with protection. Now, there was a time where

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if you were going to shoot an
intimate scene you had to have some nudity.

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That seems to be less the case
these days. Oh yeah, we

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can definitely shoot an intimate scene without
nudity. So, I mean, people

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have sex in all different kinds of
ways, so we want to have representation

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of different kinds of sex. So
sure, you could do an intimate scene

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basically fully clothed, potentially depending on
the story. But yeah, it's really

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important to offer actors a chance to
talk about their boundaries around the scene so

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that in advance of being on set
on the day, they know what to

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expect and they don't have to be
wondering, because I find that that's the

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key. If an actor is wondering
what's going to happen, then they're wasting

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their energy thinking about that rather than
thinking about the acting, which is what

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they're really good at. So my
job is just to give them all the

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information, help them see exactly how
they can help fulfill the director's vision of

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the story, and then we have
a good time. The Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook,

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Brooke Haney is with us. You
have some actresses and actors who are

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exhibitionists and some who are a little
less exhibitionists. Is it harder to work

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with one that is not willing to
go all the way? Oh? Thank

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Ley. I actually think that's a
fantastic question because I love a good boundary

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because it pushes me to be more
creative. When someone doesn't have any boundaries,

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or very very few, then we
often end up replicating things we've seen

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before because we can very easily decide
what to do, Which doesn't mean that

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directors don't have magically wonderful ideas without
that. But the second boundary an actor

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gives a boundary, especially a like
odd boundary, then we have to get

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really creative and sometimes the most amazing
storytelling comes out of that. Yeah.

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I've seen some pretty intimate scenes that
weren't sexual lost in translation Bill Murray and

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Scarlett Johansson. It was just a
flirtatious moving of their feet and that was

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the love scene, but it communicated
all the affection that the scene needed to

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communicate. That's absolutely right, and
actually scenes you wouldn't even think you would

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need an intimacy coordinator for because they
aren't sexual at all. For example,

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let's say we're watching a medical drama
and someone gets rolled in on a gurney

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and their clothes cut off. You
would want an intimacy coordinator for that because

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that's a form of nudity and that's
not sexual at all. So there are

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definitely other kinds of scenes that require
it. Absolutely the Intimacy Coordinator's guide Book,

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and Brook Haney is an intimacy coordinator
who has written the book on it,

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and it's available everywhere you get books. Actors, actresses and their contracts.

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Many of them in their contract have
either no nudity, are only very

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specific portions of nudity and for specific
periods of time. Absolutely, we call

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them nudity writers or intimacy writers,
and it spells out very specifically what they

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will be asked to do, and
we get those to them forty eight hours

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before they will have to be on
set to give them that much time to

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make a decision. They don't have
to sign them that day, They only

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have to sign them before we shoot. And that's because time can be coercive

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if you wait until right before an
actor is running on stage, which is

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what we used to do to tell
them what's going to happen. They don't

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get to really make an informed,
consensual decision, so we give them that

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in advance, And you're exactly right. It's like written out to a t

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do. Some of the actors and
actresses feel pressured into doing it for the

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sake of their career. They don't
want to be branded as difficult to work

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with. Yeah, I'm sure that's
true. There's so much scarcity of work

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for actors. There's so many people
who want to be actors and not as

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much work. And the thing about
it is, any time we're working,

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the actor is always the person almost
always the person with the least amount of

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power, unless they're a big A
list star. The producer has power to

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give or take their job. The
director as the power to give or take

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their job. The editor has the
power to make them look good or not.

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So. Yeah, I think actors
really worry about not coming off as

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a diva and not coming off as
hard to work with. And that's a

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big reason why this job is so
important. Because we come in with little

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to no power and we talk to
the actor privately and say, what is

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it that you need and then we
go back to the director and help find

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a plan that will make everyone really
happy, so that it's not about being

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hard to work with. It's about
it's okay to have boundaries. The Intimacy

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Coordinators guide Book, Brooke Haini is
the author of it. A special specialties

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for stage and screen minors in certain
intimate scenes that can get kind of sticky.

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Absolutely, that's one of the chapters
in the book. I consider it

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a specialty. Kim Shively wrote that
chapter. There are laws that are different

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for working with miners, and they
differ state by state, country by country.

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So if you are looking to work
with miners, it can't just be

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I'm good with kids. I'm really
good with kids, and I work with

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miners on occasion, but a lot
of times that's not something that I've chosen

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to specialize in. So I will
pass that to someone who does have that

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specialty. And that's one of the
main things I want people to get out

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of The Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook is that
if you really look deeply at your project

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and what it requires, then you
can find the right intimacy coordinator for you.

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For example, I'm really great at
queer intimacy, and I would love

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to be hired for that. So
maybe I throw Kim the working with miners,

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and Kim throws me the queer intimacy
and everyone's storytelling is better intimacy coordinator's

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guidebook and brook Haney is with us. Is it easier to choreograph an intimate

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scene or a fight fight scene?
Well, I think it depends on the

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person. It's a lot easier for
me to choreograph an intimate scene because I

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am not a fight director. I
have taken a lot of combat I even

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taught it as an assistant at the
college level, but that's not my area

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of expertise. So intimacy is totally
in my wheelhouse. And I would say,

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I bet they're fight directors or some
coordinators who are like, it's way

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easier. That's my wheelhouse. But
it depends they have different challenges, just

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like an intimate scene, for example, underwater has a different challenge than maybe

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a fight underwater would have, or
a fight with fire versus an intimacy scene

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with fire. Like it just yeah, you need someone that really knows what

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they're doing for whatever the requirements of
the scene are. Brokaney, the intimacy

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Coordinator's guide Book. If you love
the behind the scenes stuff about film,

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this is one of these who probably
need to add to your reading list for

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the summer, and we thank you
for joining us intimately. Hey, thanks

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so much for having me Lea.
It was great to talk with you.

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Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and

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remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation