Focused on the life of legendary table tennis player Marty Reisman, Gwyneth told Vanity Fair that the film includes “a lot—a lot” of sex between her and Timothée.
“There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed,” Gwyneth added. Recalling how a coordinator once asked whether she was comfortable with a certain action on set, Gwyneth said, “I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.'”
According to the article, Gwyneth and Timothée “all but waved off their intimacy coordinator.”
“We said, ‘I think we’re good,'” Gwyneth recalled. “‘You can step a little bit back.’ I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but…if someone is like, ‘Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.”
The comments quickly drew backlash online as readers criticized Gwyneth for waving off the coordinator. Many stressed the importance of their role in protecting actors and maintaining consent on set. One tweet that now has over 100,000 likes said, “push back against intimacy coordinators will always be weird to me like you are not the only person on set.” Another read: “if you feel superior to the people who are supposed to be there protecting you AND EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE SET, then you’re the problem.”
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Gwyneth addressed the backlash and praised the addition of intimacy coordinators since she stepped away from acting.
Gwyneth called it “very cool” before going on to say that she never meant to come across as if she was dissing them.
“I know there were some quotes that positioned it like I was pooh-poohing the intimacy coordinator, which of course is not at all what I meant,” she shared. “What I meant was that I was totally surprised, like, who is this person?”
Gwyneth said that while she thinks “all of the protections that came from the #MeToo movement are great,” she was personally a bit uncomfortable with the coordinator’s involvement at the time.
“I was not used to that,” she said. “It’s like, ‘OK, now he’s going to squeeze your boob,’ or whatever, and I felt more embarrassed talking about it than just doing it.”
Gwyneth added, “I’m from a different time, but if I was starting today, or if my daughter wants to go into this, I’m so glad that there’s now this role and that she will learn, OK, there’s consent, and there are guardrails.”
You can read her full remarks here.