“Transforming Spaces” is a series about women driving change in sometimes unexpected places.
It takes a lot of people to make a movie. You’ve got the director for overall vision, the gaffer on the lights, the set decorators to add texture to the film’s world, and the costume designers to envision the actors’ looks.
And when those costumes come off and things start to get a bit steamy? That’s where Jessica Steinrock comes in.
Ms. Steinrock is an intimacy coordinator — or intimacy director, when she’s working on theater and live performance — who facilitates the production of scenes involving nudity, simulated sex or hyper exposure, which she defines as “something someone might not otherwise uncover in public, even if it’s not legally nudity.” Much like a stunt coordinator or a fight director, she makes sure that the actors are safe throughout the process, and that the scene looks believable.
The role has come to prominence in the last five years. As the entertainment industry reeled from the litany of abuses brought to light by the #MeToo movement, many productions were eager to publicly demonstrate their commitment to safety. Hiring an intimacy coordinator was one way to do that.
“A lot of places were really excited about the possibility of this work and being ahead of the curve — showing that their company cared about their actors, cared about consent,” Ms. Steinrock said in a Zoom interview from her home in Chicago.