Showrunners and filmmakers began bringing intimacy coordinators onto TV and film sets to ensure that performers felt safe and their boundaries respected while filming sex scenes. But as two top practitioners told TheWrap, the role has expanded to include any depiction of “heightened emotion,” including assaults, deaths and childbirth.
Kathy Kadler, who comes from a nursing background and has been an intimacy coordinator for three years, worked on both seasons of Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.” She found the cast relying on her more often in filming Season 2, in which characters dealt with a stillbirth, cannibalism, murder and dissociative breaks from reality.