Gwyneth Paltrow had to shoot “a lot” of sex scenes with co-star Timothée Chalamet on the set of the forthcoming ping-pong drama, “Marty Supreme” — and considering it was her first film role in years, it was also her first time working with an intimacy coordinator.
In a new cover profile interview with Vanity Fair, the Oscar-winning actress says that she did not know what an intimacy coordinator was when she started production, and that she and Chalamet agreed to wave theirs off.
“There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed … We said, ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back,’” Paltrow recalled of the steamy production.
Reflecting on how the intimacy coordinator on “Marty Supreme” tried to rehearse one of the film’s sex scenes with her and Chalamet, Paltrow revealed, “I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.’”
Hiring intimacy coordinators has become an increasingly common and standard practice within Hollywood. Most productions, however, still leave it up to their actors to decide whether or not they want to work with them. Paltrow said that working too closely with one on “Marty Supreme” would have made her feel creatively “stifled.”
“I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but … if someone is like, ‘OK, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that,” she explained.
The involvement of intimacy coordinators on films with intimate and nude scenes remains a hot-button issue, particularly online. “Anora” star Mikey Madison and writer-director Sean Baker both came under heavy fire in late 2024 for opting not to employ one on their Best Picture-winning film, despite it containing multiple explicit sex scenes.
Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme” stars Chalamet as a ping-pong hustler navigating the world of his chosen sport who ends up in an affair with a married woman, played by Paltrow. “They meet and she’s had a pretty tough life, and I think he breathes life back into her,” Paltrow teased of her and Chalamet’s romance in the film. “But it’s kind of transactional for them both.”
Last year, Paltrow and Chalamet, who is 23 years Paltrow’s junior, made headlines when paparazzi photos and videos taken near the set of “Marty Supreme” captured a scene of the two passionately kissing. According to Paltrow, that scene is just the tip of the iceberg. “We have a lot of sex in this movie,” she informed Vanity Fair. “There’s a lot — a lot.”
A24 is set to release “Marty Supreme” on Dec. 25.
