Intimacy Directors and Coordinators Podcast
Where Intimacy Professionals in TV, Film, and Theatre come together to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry.
Intimacy Directors and Coordinators Podcast
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🎙️ Podcast Show Notes Introduction
You want to do a great job. You want to support the actors, protect the process, and make the work better. But somewhere along the way, that instinct can tip into something else. Overstepping. In this episode, Alicia Rodis and Amanda Pulcini unpack one of the most common mistakes intimacy professionals make in the field. Not because they are untrained or careless, but because they care deeply. This conversation breaks down how overstepping shows up, why it happens, and how to stay grounded in your role without losing your voice. If you have ever second guessed whether you were doing too much or not enough, this episode will give you the clarity to find that balance.
👂 What to Listen For
- The subtle ways overstepping shows up and how it can unintentionally take power away from actors and directors
- Why reading the room and understanding each set’s culture is essential to doing your job well
- How too much structure or technical language can actually break trust instead of building it
- The difference between facilitating collaboration and controlling the process
- Why feedback in the moment is a gift and how to use it to adjust and grow in real time
🔗 Important Links
Why We’re Talking About Mistakes
SPEAKER_01Hello, and welcome to the Intimacy Directors and Coordinators podcast, where intimacy professionals in film, TV, and theater come together to keep our finger on the pulse of the industry. My name is Amanda Pulcini. I'm the director of the Intimacy Professional Accelerator Program at IDC. I use she her pronouns. And I'm joined by.
SPEAKER_00Hello, my name is Alicia Rhodas. I am the creative director at IDC. My pronouns are she, her, and I am an intimacy coordinator for film and television and intimacy director for theater, and all around happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01An all-around happy person.
SPEAKER_00Ah happy to be here. Okay. We do our best. We do our best every day.
SPEAKER_01Well, today on today's episode, we're talking about mistakes, some common mistakes that intimacy professionals make when they're out in the field. These are things that I can say that I've certainly done, that I've watched colleagues do, and we talk about and jam about afterwards. And we're like, why did we do that? What happened? Or what's going on in that? And so we thought it would be a really great subject to kind of dispel some myth and perfectionism that happens when we're in this role, to just take some of that weight off
The Pressure to Be Perfect in This Role
SPEAKER_01of it. So you had a couple of thoughts off the bat, Alicia.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I just want to just say, you know, because I I understand when hopping into this is like, uh, podcasts about mistakes. And it's like some of this is also pushing back against that idea of perfectionism that we so often find ourselves in, just in general in our lives, but certainly working as an intimacy director or coordinator, you feel like there are there's no space for a mistake to happen or a misstep to happen. Whereas we are we are human beings and we need to, you know, I think early on when you know working as an intimacy professional was just coming up, there was a point where we were trying to be as perfect as possible because we felt if we made any mistakes, then the whole thing would be just would get thrown out with the bathwater. But in reality, you know, we are an established role on film sets, in theater, in the world, you know, and we also can be human. We do also don't want to fall into the world of being like intimacy bots where we just never put anything out there that could or never take risks, because sometimes you do do have to take risks. So we wanted to give some space for things that happen, mistakes that you might make, how we recover from them, and also, you know, what we can know about so that we can make less mistakes.
The Need to Prove Yourself (Even Now)
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think uh to your point, Alicia, one of the one of the beauties about entering this field where we are right now is that this is an established profession. And so we're spending a lot less time teaching people what we are or having to prove what we are in the room. But it still sneaks up in in in really crafty little ways of having to prove ourselves, especially in the collaboration process. Can you talk a little bit about some of the first, some of some of the like very early on days of maybe working as an intimacy professional where you're like, oh, I have to prove myself and how uh like how that showed up for you in your sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00And you know, this is not to say that we're not working with people uh at this point, you know, some I was just in a room a few weeks ago with someone who was like, well, this is my first time working with an intimacy coordinator, so I've never done this. And and you know, and honestly, the other people in the room went, wow, really? And you know, and it was like, okay, cool. And I said, you know, I said, don't worry, I'll be gentle. And you know, and what I find is that, you know, and I've been asked by producers before, like, well, how do you handle working with someone who's never worked with you before? And my usual response is, I be excellent at my job. I just give the space to be able to let that person be heard. I know what I'm leaning back on, which is which are the pillars. I still lean on the pillars and have that as my foundation. I still know what my foundations are, and so that's what I am, I am always able to step back onto when I need to give space and then approach when I need to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the so much of that is the is the flow and the collaboration, right? Like I think that we are now seeing a wide range of people who may have experience working with intimacy professionals and people who don't. Maybe people like myself who are actors and also intimacy professionals. That's why I kind of love talking about this subject because for me, even before working with intimacy professionals, I was super comfortable with intimacy. But when an intimacy coordinator or an intimacy director would come in, I was able to kind of express this is how I like to work and work through it. Now I have more knowledge and vocabulary of so much of an intimacy professional is meeting the human beings that you're seeing in front of you, not infantilizing them in any way, shape, or form with proving yourself and the job and all the things that you could possibly do, and also making sure that you're giving those tools of support to the person who may have less experience in the room and may need some more of those tools, right? Absolutely. It's speaking two languages at once sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, which by the way, is not singular to just the intimacy coordinator or intimacy director. The director is having to do that, the stage manager is having to do that, you know. And I think a lot about when I'm working in theater about stage management. And uh, same as thinking a lot uh in in film and television about ADs and how they are able to run the room without having to go through everything they're doing or infantilize everyone, they set the structure, and when the structure isn't there, they uplift that structure. And that is something that I've that is a way I find myself working more often than not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, so so when when you're walking into a place that may or may not have structure.
SPEAKER_00The thing that I always need to be cautious about when trying to implement the structure or restart the structure or hop into upholding some structure is that I don't want to push too hard on it or uh and end up overstepping, which I think is one of the most common mistakes that we have seen, experienced, and hear of other intimacy professionals doing currently in in this era.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and overstepping, just to lay
Naming the Core Mistake: Overstepping
SPEAKER_01it out for our audience, because you may have a whole bunch of different levels of of understanding and what overstepping could be. Overstepping could be inserting some of your voice into the room that that takes away some power from the director and their vision and their ability to work with the actors one-on-one. It could be forcefully asking for things to be done in a very specific way with our ADs or stage managers in a way that is not in flow with the structure that they have set. It could be advocating on behalf or for actors who don't maybe need that advocacy in that moment, which takes away their agency in that. There's a lot of ways to kind of overstep this that's under, that's all underpinned with the idea of we just want to support. We just want to help the storytelling, we just want to do our jobs and do it really well and do it fully. But sometimes we can overstep the the hierarchy and the structure of the place that we're working in. Does that sum it up? Do you feel like Alicia?
SPEAKER_00I think so. I think so. I mean, there are plenty of ways to misstep or have a mistake while you're working, but as far as overstepping, I think I think there's there's there's other there's other ways that we can look at it as well. I find that in my experience, from what I see in overstepping, I'm working on a lot of high-caliber sets. I'm working on a lot of sets that are that are really high and therefore, you know, some high pressure in in the industry. And some of the most common missteps that I hear about are folks not understanding what it is like in that context of that kind of set and how folks are interacting with each other. Sometimes, and that can also be from just not knowing because you haven't been there before, not studying or or you know, asking what it is that is needed. And also some of it is sometimes it's not you've worked at that caliber before, and it's not that. Sometimes it's just how this particular set runs and how everyone is going about it, because each each set is going to have its own culture, its own ecosystem that it is working within. And if everyone has been very jovial and jokey and et cetera, and you come in super stringent, it might end up being a misstep or a misread of that situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, another, I think another example of that is in the in the theater world, right? It's it's it might not always be the best move to do a workshop ahead of time. That might be a great move for young green actors in a university or an educational setting. But if I'm coming in to work at uh a theater like Court or Steppenwolf or maybe on a Broadway production, I'm not gonna spend an hour doing a consent workshop with them. It's a different that would be overstepping my role and their knowledge base, right? And their professional.
SPEAKER_00I am so glad you brought that up because I hear of this still occurring on different sets and in different theaters and you know, and in 2018, it was a different situation. We were all in a different place culturally, we were all in a different place, honestly, just as a profession, but also as an entire entertainment industry. We were in a different place. So, you know, I I don't think it's, you know, nine times out of ten, it's not necessary to have that consent workshop before we even do, or have people do the yesno game or things like that. Like you said, for uh for educational institutions, uh yeah, that that's a completely different thing. Like I still do the orientation work for a few different schools. And when those students are just coming in and we have a workshop of like, this is how we are approaching consent, this is how we are approaching working on intimate scenes with this uh while you have your time here at this school, and then we'll go into a consent workshop and then we'll do it. But even that has changed over the past few years because a lot of these even students are coming in with a very heightened idea of consent and boundaries than a lot of us did, and a lot of some older performers and and creatives that I work with have currently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's
Misreading the Room and Set Culture
SPEAKER_01really it's really understanding your audience and being able to uh navigate without ego of what the people in front of you need, like getting into the technicalities of our work and and of choreographing, right? If you're talking, we we talk about this thing in IDC called the mixer board and we talk about tempo and duration and eye contact. And and if you're if I was to come in as an intimacy coordinator on set and say, great, so we're going to hold eye contact for a count of three, the love, the pathway, we're gonna trace the pathway from the the wrist all the way up to the shoulder. We're gonna hold our breath for one beat, and then we're gonna initially, if I went through all of those details, the actors would look at me like I was crazy. So it's not about all the technicalities, and quite frankly, they may look at me like I'm crazy, but they also might second guess, oh, should I be more worried about it and not trust my instinct in this moment? And so then you're creating more doubt instead of building up trust in them. And it's great that you know all those things and you can implement them slowly and gently as you go through the process. But if you come in full force, people might be like, bah, that feels like a math problem.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. And you know, it's interesting because, you know, when we were talking just a few minutes ago about structure and making sure there's a structure, I think that structure is not in that there is specific choreography for every single moment in the moment that we're crafting. But the structure is more, have we talked about this? Do we know what story we're telling? Okay, now that we have the generalities and we know that we're going to make sure everyone is okay with what we're doing ahead of time, now we can start to work on how we're putting it together. And that is where the collaboration really comes in. And the structure is more around what our prep work has really been.
SPEAKER_01Yeah,
When Structure Becomes Control
SPEAKER_01you know, as you're talking about this, this Samantha Kaufman and I actually had a lovely lunch this week. Oh, I know.
SPEAKER_00I love Samantha Kaufman.
SPEAKER_01I do too. So I'm I had lunch with Samantha Kaufman this week, and and we love Samantha Kaufman. We love Samantha Kaufman. She's so great. And we were we were talking about one thing that we're seeing in intimacy professionals, and you mentioned this before, Alicia. So this is why I'm tying it full circle. Is one of the things, one of the reasons that we see this common mistake, right, is that we're not tracing it back to the critical thinking of the foundations of the work, right? So she said, if we can root the work, we're rooting the work, we're we're building the roots as an intimacy professional through the pillars, through understanding what consent is, maybe through crisp or through however else you you approach consent, through, through the basics of the environment that we are looking to create. And then from there, we don't know what tree is going to grow from those roots in any project. We have no idea if that tree is going to be an aspen, if it's going to be an oak tree, if it's going to be a cherry blossom. That tree is actively growing as we are working on the project. But if we keep allowing, we see the branch, maybe that branch is twisting off this way and go, oh, okay, this tree is leaning to the right. How do I go back to my roots so that I understand how to get some balance to help that tree grow over here? I'm rooting my decisions back in the foundations of intimacy. And so much of our work is being able to trust our prep, to trust those foundations, to trust ourselves and the people that we're working with and allow that growth to happen naturally without forcing it to be a certain tree because we are rooting it. Yes. Those principles.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I love that metaphor. I love all of it. I think that's fantastic. It's true. It's like we put it all together. We can, we, we till the soil, we dig the hole, we set it up, we nurture it with all the stuff that we need to know and have ahead of time. And then we we water it and start to let it grow.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So if we have a director that's coming in, we haven't talked about directors yet. We've talked a little bit about actors, but if we have a director coming in saying, like, I feel super comfortable with all of this. And I really want to be pretty hands-on. I'm glad that you're here, but also like I really want to be the voice in the room. Let's sit, let's say that they, that's the setup, right? And you're like, cool, right, wonderful. And they get in the room and all of a sudden they're starting to use language that might feel isolating or might not feel the most uplifting to the performers. All of a sudden they're cracking jokes and it feels a little unprofessional. We how are we how are we navigating in that room of this is the scenario that we're set up in, this is what behavior we're seeing. How are we navigating that where we're not bringing that director down? We're still uplifting them, but helping to let the tree grow a little bit more centered, right? A little bit more balanced.
Staying Grounded: Foundations, Feedback, and Flow
SPEAKER_00On the topic of mistakes and misstepping, that's a tough one. Because, you know, I I think there's also depends on a lot of things of how how much we're going into a direction of, you know, how do I put this? I think there's a scale of how are we talking about a director being inappropriate and potentially saying harassing things, or are we talking about maybe it's just getting a little loose? And then for that, you know, my I talk about this all the time, but my my usual the way that I go about intimacy, so much intimacy directing and coordinating is just specific questions and clarifying questions. And so even just, you know, allowing the laugh to happen, allowing the moment to happen, and then so if I can clarify, or if I can ask, do we mean this, this, this, or is how, what's the duration that you're thinking of that, or asking us what just so that we ground ourselves back into the task at hand and let that sort of guide us back?
SPEAKER_01I actually really appreciate. I almost second guessed myself asking you that question in the moment because I felt it was off topic, but I actually think you modeled in real time, taking your time and thinking about it and and and weighing all the factors of I we say it depends often, but it does. And the it depends is actually a moment to use our critical thinking skills to go great. Is active harm happening here? No, is everybody does the temperature of the room still feel really great? I might not have to address this in a firmer way, right? So I'm going back to the foundation of I'm creating a room where people can do their best work. People still feel like they're doing their best work, great. And I'm gonna clarify the choreography here, just just to make sure that we are still remaining professional.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So we're still going structure. I'm not asking them to mixer board everything, but I'm going back to the structure. Do we know what the structure is so that they are able to still work within that structure and still play and flow within that structure? But I'm just gonna go back to so we are doing is this what we're moving to? I guess I I also just recently worked in a room with a lot of very funny people. These are very funny people. These are also people that are high in the level of the entertainment industry, so you know, have some celebrity to them, but also are very funny, get along with each other very well, and there were a lot of jokes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Some of the it depends on that situation was also talking, having my one-on-one with the actors of like, how do you feel about this? How do you, you know, and so there was space from everyone to enjoy what we were doing and have some fun with it. We made sure the jokes were at no one's expense. Every now and again when we'd like separate or like go into new setup, it would be like be like, how are we doing? We doing okay? Is is are we getting a little too funny? No, great, right? You know, but there was space for that, and everyone was okay and actually had a great time, and it really fit the vibe of what of what we were doing, and we were also honoring the task at hand and doing the work.
SPEAKER_01That's right. You're going, you're going back to the roots of like this is this is we're seeing the individual human in front of us. We know that jokes can turn to this place, but we're not going to take it to immediate, serious mode. It's a meeting the energy where it is, to meet the human being and be aware that this is a thing that happens in the entertainment industry that can influence people's ability to make fully grounded and full-throated consensual decisions in their work. So we're aware of this. That is tempering our ability to be able to navigate this and support this moment or to allow the moment to flow.
SPEAKER_00Right. And you know, it's interesting. There was also a it's also a bit of a power dynamics situation as well, because this were all, these were all people that were had a certain celebrity and that, but we're all along the same lines of each other. And the same with the director, it was like, okay, we we can allow this to flow a little bit more or or not feel like we have to actively disrupt it.
SPEAKER_01So you know, to to kind of round us out in in some of these discussions and examples, which I'm kind of glad that we went on some of these tangents of examples, Alicia. I'm sorry, I wasn't planning on doing that. And yet, and yet here we were. One of the things that I I want to uplift about our accelerator program, if you happen to be in it. In in phase two, we get an example of you working with a director and two actors on a scene that you're choreographing together. And it's one of the it's one of my favorite lessons to watch over and over because I think you do a really great job of striking that balance between knowing when to step forward. And I would even say that that that's an example of an intimacy coordinator being a little bit more heavy-handed in some of the direction and choreography of it. But the director actually wanted to sit back. It was very clear that he had expressed I'm I'm taking a step back. I, if you look, watch the director call ahead of time, he's like, I kind of want you to do, to, to do your thing and to to move forward. So you took that. And what you continue to do is is check back. With the director to make sure that their voice was still in the room, that the actors were feeling a part actively a part of that collaboration. And it's a great example of being able to flow and to touch base with everybody in real time.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think it's the important thing that we need to remember as intimacy professionals is that it's still the director's vision. It's not my vision. I can come with ideas, but I'm not going to be creating the overarching vision of this, of what this scene is going to be. That is going to be a collaboration of everyone, and I can give tools to help people find what that vision is, but it's always going to be back to the director. It's always going to be back to the actors and how we're all working together.
SPEAKER_01I think that that, you know, my my final tip and trick in this moment, because when I'm on the podcast, I think I end things with tips and tricks. And I don't know if that's the right thing to do, but that's what I'm doing. I love it. You know, it's one of the greatest things that I learned in my training with you and Claire, and my training as an actor, is all of these things that we're talking about is opening up your kinesphere, which is kind of like your energetic awareness around you. So you may be literally eyes forward on the actors in front of you, but the director is behind you and the DP is behind you, framing up the shots, or the stage manager is back there taking notes, right? I am focused on the actors in front of me. But if those other, those other collaborators happen to be behind me or to the side of me, I'm making sure that I have an energetic arm out to them, taking their temperature and making sure that they are a part of this or as less of a part of it as they want to be in that time and space. So opening up your kinosphere really helps you navigate, water that, that, that tree wherever it is, and keeping yourself grounded in the people around you.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, absolutely. No, I'm completely with you on that.
SPEAKER_01Any other tip and trick that you would would offer? You don't have to, but just wanted to throw that.
SPEAKER_00I think goes more into when the mistakes happen and the grounding of yourself and allowing, you know, if you are lucky enough to get feedback from someone saying this isn't working for me or that doesn't work for me, you are so blessed that you are getting that feedback because so often they just, you know, they they're just like, okay, thank you. And then you're never, you never hear from them ever again. Or you hear later down the line of like something that occurred. You know, it's such a gift if someone gives you feedback. Even in the moment, it can be difficult, but even someone saying, like, this is too, this is too constructive, or I've had an actor say, like, I don't want to be micromanaged in this. And I'm like, great. Thank you so much for telling me that. Okay, so let's take a step back and then reassess and work in where you're at. You know, it it really is, I would just suggest to everyone to take it as difficult as it can be sometimes, take it as a gift and then breathe and pivot. Like we always used to say, we breathe and we pivot. Breathe and pivot.
SPEAKER_01It's yes, we because we are in service of those around us. Our role is to be in service uh of the people that we're working with. And so, yeah, I just love that. It is a gift to get that in time in real-time feedback. Thank you, Alicia, so so much for your insight, for your true wisdom, years and years of wisdom and of building this. There's so much that in so many ways we have grown as an industry and we are constantly still learning what people know and what they don't know and how to adapt to that. So, your wisdom on this is so, so helpful. Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for everything you're putting out there. Like this is this is it's tough, y'all. This is a tough uh role to be in. But, you know, the more that we can accept and the more that we can just, you know, accept criticism and accept notes as we're moving forward, it just it just makes us better on the other side.
SPEAKER_01For for us as individuals and for the industry as a whole, truly. Thousand percent. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate your time, and we'll see you on the next episode.