:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/florence-pugh-1-22eaef58b32449afb542aed361c70f11.jpg)
NEED TO KNOW
- Florence Pugh appeared on Louis Theroux’s podcast for a conversation on her personal and professional life
- The star reflected on intimacy coordination during sex scenes on film sets, saying, “It’s a job that’s still figuring itself out”
- Pugh recalled having experiences with filmmakers and intimacy coordinators ranging from “effective” to “completely inappropriate”
Florence Pugh is weighing in on intimacy coordinators — the “good ones and bad ones.”
“I’m having fantastic experiences with intimacy coordinators,” the British actress, 29, said during her recent appearance on The Louis Theroux Podcast. “However, I’ve also had a s— example.”
Without getting into specifics, Pugh recalled an experience on set with an intimacy coordinator who “just made it so weird and so awkward and really wasn’t helpful and kind of was just like wanting to be a part of the set in a way that wasn’t helpful,” she said. “I think it’s a job that’s still figuring itself out.”
The Thunderbolts star, who launched her screen career with indie movies like the 2016 breakout Lady Macbeth, recalled that she’s filmed sex scenes both before and after the invention of the intimacy coordinator role.
Pugh has played the onscreen love interest of Harry Styles in Don’t Worry, Darling, Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer, Andrew Garfield in We Live in Time, among others.
Daniel Zuchnik/Getty
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“I’m quite confident, I’m quite happy in my skin, I’ve always been able to make sure that I’m heard,” Pugh explained.
“That being said, even though I know that I believe that, and even though I know that I felt that at the time, there are plenty of things that I remember where it was just completely inappropriate to have asked me to do that, to have directed me in that way.”
More recently, however, “I’ve been able to understand better meaning now through working with great ones in sex scenes,” Pugh said, adding that the goal is “finding the story of what it is, what kind of sex is it, how do you touch each other, how long have you been having sex for.”
Everyone on set, she continued, is “working away to chip away at the scene. And I think when I worked with a fantastic coordinator, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve been missing, understanding the dance of intimacy as opposed to just shooting a sex scene.’ ”
Pugh concluded, “There are good ones and bad ones, and it’s through the good ones that I have learned how effective it can really be.”
The actress-producer, currently filming Dune: Part Three, also has limited series East of Eden and Avengers: Doomsday (in theaters Dec. 18) among her upcoming projects.
