Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed that she felt uncomfortable with the presence of an intimacy coordinator on the set of her new film Marty Supreme, in which she shares multiple sex scenes with co-star Timothée Chalamet. Speaking to Vanity Fair, the 52-year-old actor said it was her first experience of the role, introduced after the #MeToo movement to protect actors.
Paltrow said she told the coordinator: 'Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.' She added that Chalamet, 28 at the time of filming, agreed they were 'good' and the coordinator could 'step a little bit back.' Paltrow said she would feel 'very stifled' as an artist if someone dictated movements during sex scenes.
In Marty Supreme, Chalamet plays a ping pong prodigy loosely inspired by Marty Reisman, while Paltrow plays the wife of a rival player with whom his character has an affair. 'We have a lot of sex in this movie,' Paltrow said, adding that she joked about their age gap: 'I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.'
Paltrow, who won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and was among the first to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, praised Chalamet’s commitment after his Oscars defeat. Intimacy coordinators are now standard in the industry, supported by stars like Emma Thompson and Rachel Zegler, but criticised by others like Sean Bean and Jennifer Aniston, who also dismissed one on The Morning Show.
Some younger actors have also expressed scepticism. Anora star Mikey Madison, who won an Oscar this month, said she declined director Sean Baker’s offer of an intimacy coordinator for her sex scenes, preferring to keep it 'small' and approach it 'as a job.'
