Intimacy

An Evening Standard ''Book to Watch'' for 2025 From the initial spark of attraction when your eyes first meet, to spontaneously dancing together in the kitchen and falling asleep side by side - how do we create those intimate moments of connection? How we see sex and intimacy portrayed on screen has profound effects on how we learn to love each other, but before Ita O''Brien, no-one was thinking about it. After a lifetime of working in film and TV and seeing its abuses first-hand, Ita decided to change how we portray intimacy for good. Now, as Intimacy Coordinator on productions including Normal People , Sex Education and I May Destroy You, Ita has transformed the way we see and talk about sex in pop-culture. Here, Ita guides us through how she helps actors create authentic sex scenes, and how we can use those techniques to rebuild a deeper and healthier connection with our bodies, create a safe space for exploration, and rethink how we navigate sex and intimacy in our own lives - at home, in our closest relationships - and in society as a whole. Full of behind-the-scenes stories from her work on set, Intimacy is a call for us to rethink how we navigate ourselves and each other, not just through our words, but through our bodies and actions, too.

Autorentext

Ita O'Brien is one of the world's leading Intimacy Coordinators, and the creator of the Intimacy On Set guidelines, which are now used around the world. She has worked on a huge number of productions (23 in 2021 alone!), including Normal People (BBC/Hulu), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It's A Sin (Channel 4/HBO) and Sex Education (Netflix), and upcoming releases include Conversations With Friends (BBC/Hulu), Dangerous Liaisons (Playground/Starz), Lady Chatterley's Lover (Netflix/Blueprint Pictures; dir: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre) and Empire of Light (Neal Street Productions/Searchlight; dir: Sam Mendes). Ita has been interviewed or profiled by Vogue, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, Guardian, The Times, Elle, Entertainment Weekly and many others, and appeared on numerous radio and television shows, and podcasts.

Klappentext

"A vital contribution to our understanding of intimacy both on screen and in life." Gillian Anderson | *An Evening Standard* 'Book to Watch' for 2025

From the initial spark of attraction when your eyes first meet, to spontaneously dancing together in the kitchen and falling asleep side by side - how do we create those intimate moments of connection?**

As a pioneering Intimacy Coordinator, Ita O'Brien has choreographed some of the most groundbreaking, passionate and vulnerable intimate scenes onscreen. From Normal People to I May Destroy You, and in so many more productions, she has also made these scenes safer, more joyful and more empowering to perform in. No one knows intimacy, the power of true connection, better than her.

So, what can her work teach us about our own relationships, both with ourselves and others? How can we use her tools to discover what it is that we truly want in our intimate lives? And how can all of this create environments in which intimacy can take seed, grow and even thrive?

Combining embodied wisdom, behind-the-scenes stories and exercises for connection, Intimacy offers us a field guide to discovering our desires, communicating our needs, and cultivating truly intimate relationships at every stage of our lives.

Zusammenfassung
Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of human connection in the modern world, this book offers a fresh perspective on how we can approach intimacy with confidence, respect, and joy. Gillian Anderson