This is Later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast More what you Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Brook Haney is an intimacy coordinator. We'll get into
that in just a minute. She's reading a book about it called called The
Intimacy Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook Specialties for Stage and Scream. Let's start Brook with what
you do for a living. When you were a young girl and were asked,
what do you want to be when you grow up, did you say
I want to be an intimacy coordinator? Thanks for having me, Lee.
I think when I was a young kid growing up, I wanted to be
a stunt horseback rider. I would climb the apple trees in my parents,
my aunts and uncle's farm and wait for the cows to walk underneath, and
then like lower myself onto a cow and ride around and try to convince my
parents to get me a horse. Oh, alpathetic. You couldn't even have
a horse, you had to ride cows. But yeah, no, I
did not know. But then this career didn't exist at that time. I
feel incredibly lucky that intimacy coordinating came along in my lifetime and part of the
reason I wrote the book, The Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook is because there's almost no
literature on it so far. I think this is maybe the seventh book that's
ever been written on the subject. I think it's something Hollywood didn't want us
to know about for a long long time, because that as things changed and
codes were broken and rewritten and and bard boundaries were pushed. I don't know
that the film industry wanted us to know that they had to put this much
into filming an intimate scene. Oh that's so interesting. Yeah, because on
one hand, you want the audience to assume it's real and assume that it's
easy and that it's chemistry, when in reality, it's pro and being at
a certain angle, and you know, just it's very technical. So yeah,
I think I think that if you really learned about it, if if
the regular film or TV watcher reads my book, it will destroy some of
the magic. Hopefully it'll also be fascinating, but it will destroy some of
the magic because it is technical. Some of the sexiest scenes you've ever seen
were very unsexy to film because it's really technical. Intimacy Intimacy Coordinator's guide Book,
Intimacy coordinator Brooke Haney is revealing how sex scenes are staged and how actors
are protected. Let's start with protection. Now, there was a time where
if you were going to shoot an intimate scene you had to have some nudity.
That seems to be less the case these days. Oh yeah, we
can definitely shoot an intimate scene without nudity. So, I mean, people
have sex in all different kinds of ways, so we want to have representation
of different kinds of sex. So sure, you could do an intimate scene
basically fully clothed, potentially depending on the story. But yeah, it's really
important to offer actors a chance to talk about their boundaries around the scene so
that in advance of being on set on the day, they know what to
expect and they don't have to be wondering, because I find that that's the
key. If an actor is wondering what's going to happen, then they're wasting
their energy thinking about that rather than thinking about the acting, which is what
they're really good at. So my job is just to give them all the
information, help them see exactly how they can help fulfill the director's vision of
the story, and then we have a good time. The Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook,
Brooke Haney is with us. You have some actresses and actors who are
exhibitionists and some who are a little less exhibitionists. Is it harder to work
with one that is not willing to go all the way? Oh? Thank
Ley. I actually think that's a fantastic question because I love a good boundary
because it pushes me to be more creative. When someone doesn't have any boundaries,
or very very few, then we often end up replicating things we've seen
before because we can very easily decide what to do, Which doesn't mean that
directors don't have magically wonderful ideas without that. But the second boundary an actor
gives a boundary, especially a like odd boundary, then we have to get
really creative and sometimes the most amazing storytelling comes out of that. Yeah.
I've seen some pretty intimate scenes that weren't sexual lost in translation Bill Murray and
Scarlett Johansson. It was just a flirtatious moving of their feet and that was
the love scene, but it communicated all the affection that the scene needed to
communicate. That's absolutely right, and actually scenes you wouldn't even think you would
need an intimacy coordinator for because they aren't sexual at all. For example,
let's say we're watching a medical drama and someone gets rolled in on a gurney
and their clothes cut off. You would want an intimacy coordinator for that because
that's a form of nudity and that's not sexual at all. So there are
definitely other kinds of scenes that require it. Absolutely the Intimacy Coordinator's guide Book,
and Brook Haney is an intimacy coordinator who has written the book on it,
and it's available everywhere you get books. Actors, actresses and their contracts.
Many of them in their contract have either no nudity, are only very
specific portions of nudity and for specific periods of time. Absolutely, we call
them nudity writers or intimacy writers, and it spells out very specifically what they
will be asked to do, and we get those to them forty eight hours
before they will have to be on set to give them that much time to
make a decision. They don't have to sign them that day, They only
have to sign them before we shoot. And that's because time can be coercive
if you wait until right before an actor is running on stage, which is
what we used to do to tell them what's going to happen. They don't
get to really make an informed, consensual decision, so we give them that
in advance, And you're exactly right. It's like written out to a t
do. Some of the actors and actresses feel pressured into doing it for the
sake of their career. They don't want to be branded as difficult to work
with. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. There's so much scarcity of work
for actors. There's so many people who want to be actors and not as
much work. And the thing about it is, any time we're working,
the actor is always the person almost always the person with the least amount of
power, unless they're a big A list star. The producer has power to
give or take their job. The director as the power to give or take
their job. The editor has the power to make them look good or not.
So. Yeah, I think actors really worry about not coming off as
a diva and not coming off as hard to work with. And that's a
big reason why this job is so important. Because we come in with little
to no power and we talk to the actor privately and say, what is
it that you need and then we go back to the director and help find
a plan that will make everyone really happy, so that it's not about being
hard to work with. It's about it's okay to have boundaries. The Intimacy
Coordinators guide Book, Brooke Haini is the author of it. A special specialties
for stage and screen minors in certain intimate scenes that can get kind of sticky.
Absolutely, that's one of the chapters in the book. I consider it
a specialty. Kim Shively wrote that chapter. There are laws that are different
for working with miners, and they differ state by state, country by country.
So if you are looking to work with miners, it can't just be
I'm good with kids. I'm really good with kids, and I work with
miners on occasion, but a lot of times that's not something that I've chosen
to specialize in. So I will pass that to someone who does have that
specialty. And that's one of the main things I want people to get out
of The Intimacy Coordinator's Guidebook is that if you really look deeply at your project
and what it requires, then you can find the right intimacy coordinator for you.
For example, I'm really great at queer intimacy, and I would love
to be hired for that. So maybe I throw Kim the working with miners,
and Kim throws me the queer intimacy and everyone's storytelling is better intimacy coordinator's
guidebook and brook Haney is with us. Is it easier to choreograph an intimate
scene or a fight fight scene? Well, I think it depends on the
person. It's a lot easier for me to choreograph an intimate scene because I
am not a fight director. I have taken a lot of combat I even
taught it as an assistant at the college level, but that's not my area
of expertise. So intimacy is totally in my wheelhouse. And I would say,
I bet they're fight directors or some coordinators who are like, it's way
easier. That's my wheelhouse. But it depends they have different challenges, just
like an intimate scene, for example, underwater has a different challenge than maybe
a fight underwater would have, or a fight with fire versus an intimacy scene
with fire. Like it just yeah, you need someone that really knows what
they're doing for whatever the requirements of the scene are. Brokaney, the intimacy
Coordinator's guide Book. If you love the behind the scenes stuff about film,
this is one of these who probably need to add to your reading list for
the summer, and we thank you for joining us intimately. Hey, thanks
so much for having me Lea. It was great to talk with you.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and
remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation