After decades in Hollywood, Gwyneth Paltrow had her first encounter with an intimacy coordinator during “Marty Supreme.”
Paltrow, who returns to acting with the Josh Safdie-helmed film after five years away from the screen, told Vanity Fair that she actually had no idea what an intimacy coordinator even was prior to working on the A24 film.
“There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed,” she said, adding that she told the coordinator at one point, “I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on.’”
As Paltrow teased, there were a slew of scenes that did warrant one, though. “I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,” Paltrow said, citing her onscreen time with “Marty Supreme” co-star Timothée Chalamet. “There’s a lot — a lot.”
Chalamet plays the “other man” to Paltrow’s character, who is wed to a ping pong kingpin (Chalamet is the titular fictional character who is a ping pong champion.)
Paltrow added that at times, though, she and Chalamet also asked the coordinator to “step a little bit back” for certain sequences. “We said, ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back,’ ” Paltrow recalled. “I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but…if someone is like, ‘OK, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.”
As VF included, Paltrow shrugged at simulating sex with Chalamet, and quipped, “I was like, ‘OK, great. I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.’”
Paltrow also couldn’t help but praise the talent of Chalamet, as well as his charismatic charms: She dubbed Oscar-nominated Chalamet a modern day icon. “He’s such a thinking man’s sex symbol,” Paltrow said. “He’s just a very polite, properly raised, I was going to say kid…He’s a man who takes his work really seriously and is a fun partner.”
Paltrow previously said during the “Drew Barrymore Show” that Chalamet was an ideal co-star that also helped ease her nerves about returning to the screen. “He is such a wonderful young man,” she said. “He’s very polite, very talented. Just so nice to be with. I’m really having a good time with him. I’m glad that I put myself, you know, out of…just sort of back into fear a little bit again.”
