How did Normal People make sex scenes between two total strangers look so real?

Los Angeles Times

Intimacy coordinator Ita O'Brien not only helped in the filming of the sex scenes, but she was part of the casting process for the Hulu coming-of-age drama, finding that Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal had the right sexual chemistry before they even locked lips. "Once the roles were set," reports Amy Kaufman, "O’Brien met with the two leads to explain her process: Forming intimacy guidelines that create a professional structure so the actors can separate themselves from the characters. Her three guiding principles? Open communication and transparency, agreement and consent of touch, and clear choreography. During a two-week rehearsal period, the group worked through the most vital intimate scenes 'while we were still wearing sweatpants,' Edgar-Jones says. They’d choreograph any lovemaking, mapping out the shapes of their bodies so that the cameras could catch all the correct angles." As Mescal points out, "one of the things about making it realistic is that it’s about supporting your weight in ways that make it look like your bodies are in connection. My shoulders were incredibly strong at the end of the process, because you’re holding yourself up a lot of the time to give the right illusion.” Kaufman adds: "When shooting commenced, O’Brien would start each day by discussing with (director Lenny) Abrahamson his vision for the day’s scenes. Then she’d circle back with Edgar-Jones and Mescal to run through any of their concerns before contacting wardrobe and double-checking that modesty garments like genitalia pouches or flesh-colored G-strings were in place. She’d also check in to make sure a triangle-shaped pillow was on set to place between the actors’ genitalia. She left the majority of the directing to Abrahamson, chiming in only when a scene didn’t ring anatomically true."

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• Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal remember intimacy coordinator Ita O'Brien putting them through an ice-breaking movement workshop: “We had to do a physical warm-up where we would inhabit animals, which is incredibly useful for the work, but my embarrassment threshold is quite low,” says Mescal. “I’m doing this in front of somebody who I was going to be working with for the next five months. I didn’t want Daisy to judge me or think that I was borderline insane.” Edgar-Jones adds with a laugh: “I was bent over because I was trying not to look at you.”
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