Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are husband and wife, and despite being married since 2022, the couple still used an intimacy coordinator on the set of the series A Gentleman in Moscow.
McGregor revealed in a recent interview why having an intimacy coordinator on the set was important while filming sex scenes for the series.
“It’s still necessary, because it’s also about the crew, and it’s odd to be naked in front of people, it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera,” McGregor told Radio Times. “If you were doing a dance scene, you’d have a choreographer. It’s an important part of the work now, because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle.”
The actor also noted the importance of intimacy coordinators, especially now that his daughters Esther and Clara are also actors.
“My daughter [Esther] is 22. If an older, famous director goes to a 22-year-old and says, ‘I want you to be naked in this scene,’ that actress might feel, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to do it, my career might depend on it,'” he said. “And then five years after that, she could look back and go, ‘I wish I hadn’t. Why am I naked in that scene? It’s unnecessary.'”
He continued, “Now there’s somebody she talks to whose career doesn’t rest on the shoulders of this person.”
A Gentleman in Moscow premieres March 29 on Paramount+. The series is an adaptation of Amor Towles’ novel of the same name that follows Count Alexander Rostov (McGregor) who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past has placed him on the wrong side of history.
The series also stars Winstead as glamorous, self-made film actress Anna Urbanova, Alexa Goodall, Johnny Harris and Fehinti Balogun. Additional cast includes Leah Harvey, Paul Ready, John Heffernan, Lyès Salem, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Dee Ahluwalia, Anastasia Hille, Daniel Cerqueira, Leah Balmforth, Billie Gadsdon and Beau Gadsdon.
