This post contains MASSIVE spoilers for the movieΒ Poor Things.Β π¨
You knowΒ Emma Stone, and I’m sure you love her.
Because, literally, how could you not?
Michael Kovac / Getty Images for AFI
This awards season Emma has received a ton of praise for her breathtaking performance as Bella Baxter in the filmΒ Poor Things.Β She’s alreadyΒ wonΒ a Golden Globe for her performance and is nominated for Best Actress at theΒ Academy AwardsΒ for the role.
In the movie, Bella is a young woman who behaves in a very childlike way. Bella’s guardian Godwin (played byΒ Willem Dafoe) explains that Bella is actually one of his experiments, and that Bella was originally a pregnant woman who jumped off a bridge, intending to kill herself. Godwin then resurrected her but replaced her brain with that of her unborn baby’s, basically giving an adult woman the brain of a baby. So, as the movie goes on, Bella embarks on a journey of her own and learns more about the world at an extremely rapid pace.
Searchlight Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
Throughout the movie, Bella learns a lot about her own body by embracing her sexuality, and so Emma recently opened up toΒ NPRΒ about working with Elle McAlpine, the film’s intimacy coordinator.
The job of an intimacy coordinator is to collaborate with actors and directors while planning out nude and sex scenes. They work to make sure the set is a comfortable place for all cast and all crew involved, and this way everyone can have a safer experience all around.
Searchlight Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
“I don’t think having an intimacy coordinator is even a choice anymore,” she said. “I think in the past five years, the industry has changed a lot for the better.”
“Having [Elle] there felt like having both a safety net and a choreographer and a handhold,” she continued. “She and I would text after a day of doing some of these scenes and just sort of say how we were feeling and what was going on. And it was just this really beautiful relationship that I found extremely, extremely meaningful.”
SomeΒ actorsΒ have spoken about their hesitancy to work with one, out of fear of awkwardness or ruining the “spontaneity” of those scenes. However, Emma explained that even though “there’s no real sex happening,” that’s all the more reason to have someone there to facilitate these scenes.
She explained, “I remember reading something once, that an actor on stage doing a very dramatic scene, and having meltdowns and doing monologues for 90 minutes a night just in theater, your body feels like it’s the equivalent of going through something like a car crash, because your heart is racing, you’re having these big physical reactions to these emotions that you’re kind of asking yourself to go through.”
“And I think even when you know you’re acting, when you know none of this is real, there’s no real sex happening, this is all choreographed…you sometimes underestimate what your body is going through separately,” she concluded.
Emma just joins the growingΒ listΒ of celebrities who’ve really appreciated the work that intimacy coordinators can do.
Read her full interviewΒ here.
