Sean Bean is Catching Hell for Saying 'Intimacy Coaches' Ruin Movie Sex Scenes
Despite the fact his first and last names should rhyme but maddeningly don't, Sean Bean is sneaky one of the most successful actors of his generation. I don't know if anyone can match his record of being a major part of major franchises. In addition to playing Boromir in Lord of the Rings and Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, he's done 007 and Tom Clancy. And now, north of 60, he's in Snowpiercer. He comes as close as any actor can to saying he's seen and done it all in the business.
Which means he's done his share of sex scenes. Which used to be a staple of Hollywood. From comedies to dramas, historical epics to Sci-Fi, there was a time when the noble tradition of two attractive people stopping the action to give the audience gratuitous nudity and, simulated, R-rated boinking was not only accepted, it was celebrated. Now it's becoming a lost art. Which Bean just spoke out about. And for that, because everything is terrible and everyone takes themselves too seriously, he's catching hell for it.
Source - Sean Bean has come under fire for saying intimacy co-ordinators 'ruin' Hollywood sex scenes by spoiling the spontaneity and reducing it to 'a technical exercise'.
The Game of Thrones star, 63, was criticised by British actress Jameela Jamil and West Side Story's Rachel Zegler, from New Jersey, after making the comments in a recent interview with The Times.
Intimacy coaches were largely introduced to protect actresses after the #MeToo campaign and have played a key role in creating sizzling sex scenes for hit dramas including Bridgerton and Normal People.
Hitting back at Bean's remarks, Zegler wrote on Twitter: 'Intimacy co-ordinators establish an environment of safety for actors,' adding that the Sheffield native needed to 'wake up'.
She said: 'I was extremely grateful for the one we had on [West Side Story] - they showed grace to a newcomer like myself and educated those around me who’ve had years of experience. Spontaneity in intimate scenes can be unsafe.' …
Bean, who has filmed many explicit sex scenes throughout his career, 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.
'It would inhibit me more because it's drawing attention to things – somebody saying, "Do this, put your hand there, while you touch his thing…"
'I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.'
Fortunately for Bean, there are people coming to his defense. One being his Snowpiercer co-star that has had pretend sex actor-sex with him on camera:
I'm certainly in no position to criticize these actresses who are criticizing Sean Bean. Just because he's done more death scenes than they've done scenes doesn't mean they're not talented in their own right. And I'm sure, like he, they can produce Space Mountain-like lines of nerds at ComicCons, waiting for their autographs. After all, I get stage fright standing at the urinal in a crowded stadium men's room. To the point I sometimes can't produce a stream. (My friends and I refer to this as Fenway Park Syndrome.) So who am I to judge anyone who gets self-conscious about being naked with a stranger surrounded by a couple of dozen surly IATSE union members?
But still, can't we cut Sean Bean some slack? Hasn't he earned the benefit of the doubt on this, based on his decades of morally complex characters? The man knows his craft. He doesn't respond to being over-directed when he's in a fake bed with an actress. It's not his way. He's method. I mean, imagine asking Brando to make pretend sweet, physical love while someone is standing over them telling him what he's doing may lead to actual arousal, so he has to stop. Or telling Daniel Day-Lewis, who famously preferred to say in character at all times being told, "OK, Mr. President. Now I'll need you to reach over and cup Mary Todd's breast. Not that one, the other one." That kind of precise direction might have worked for Stanley Kubrick, but it nearly killed some of his stars, like Shelly Duvall. And it's not for an experienced pretend sex actor like Sean Bean. To each his own.
To use a sports metaphor, Bean isn't a QB you script the first 15 plays for. He's a read-and-react guy. You let him put his hands under center, survey the defense, and call audibles based on the look he's getting. And he's obviously been a winner doing it this way, you micromanagers.
Just to state it again, this is just another example of how everything has to be super serious now. Hollywood sat back and said nothing while notorious creeps like Harvey Weinstein turned the film industry into his personal harem. So now a reckoning is happening. And it's ruined even that fine tradition, the sex scene. At least for old school stars like Bean. Pretty soon it'll be so you can never again drop an unnecessary, incongruous naked scene into a movie that doesn't advance the plot, just for the sake of giving the paying customer some T&A. Like it's the 1940s all over again. That's day none of us ever wants to see, but at this point, it seems pretty inevitable. And when it comes, it'll be sadder than a Sean Bean death scene.
