Ewan McGregor Still Had An Intimacy Coordinator For Sex Scenes With Wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Ewan McGregor stars in the new Paramount+ series, A Gentleman in Moscow. The show is based on the book by Amor Towles, and follows the life of an aristocrat banished to an attic hotel room by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution. Ewan’s real life wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, co-stars.

This is the second time Ewan and Mary Elizabeth have worked together (EDIT: oops, I forgot about Birds of Prey). They first met on the set of Fargo Season 3 back in 2017, when they were both technically married to other people (Ewan’s daughter, Clara, was not impressed). After their divorces were finalized, Ewan and Mary Elizabeth got hitched in 2022. They have a 2-year-old son.

Anywho, in A Gentleman in Moscow, the couple filmed some sex scenes together. But their personal relationship didn’t mean they skipped working with an on-set intimacy coordinator. In a new interview with Radio Times, Ewan explained why the coordinator was “still necessary”:

“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.”

“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.”

Ewan also talked about the importance of intimacy coordinators for younger actresses, citing his daughter, Esther:

“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.’

“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.’ Now there’s somebody she talks to whose career doesn’t rest on the shoulders of this person.”

It’s refreshing to hear a famous male actor share his support for intimacy coordinators. Listen up, Frank Langella and Sean Bean. It’s not actual sex, ya weirdos, it’s choreography!