On set, Samantha Murray's job is part science experiment, part tightrope act.
As an intimacy coordinator, she works in the space between safety and risk – where trust can turn choreography into something that feels like magic.
Maude Sandham on intimacy, improvisation, and making space on South African sets
The intimacy coordinator is usually a department of one. In Johannesburg, where productions move at breakneck speed and budgets stretch thin, that can mean juggling fire-fighting with cappuccino breaks, choreography with quiet resistance. For Maude Sandham, one of South...
Katie Groves on Safe Character Work and Mental Health in Performance
Intimacy coordinator and newly trained mental health coordinator Katie Groves talks about why personal trauma shouldn't be a prerequisite for emotional truth, the small sensory tools that keep actors grounded, and how connection—not isolation—is the secret to great performances.
As an actor taking care of your mental health is vital for a long and healthy career in an industry that is emotionally draining, financially unstable, judgemental and superficial and generally precarious. One day you're being rejected at an audition, then you're celebrating critical acclaim in the press and then suddenly images of you have been...
Is an intimacy coordinator a legal requirement? Is an intimacy coordinator part of the creative team? Does an intimacy coordinator direct or choreograph intimate scenes? Should an intimacy coordinator just monitor for safety? Does the intimacy coordinator work directly with the actors?
In 2021 Safe Sets teamed up with Netflix EMEA to train Intimacy Coordinators to be able to work on sets in Europe and beyond. After many months of conversations and planning, the Safe Sets team and Eugenio Villamizar from Netflix, worked together to create a training opportunity for Intimacy Coordinators who were either already working in Europe,...
