Jilly Cooper bemused by intimacy coaches on the set of Rivals

Times

20 hours ago

It is known for bringing to screen the sexual excesses of the Eighties, but behind the scenes Rivals has embraced the modern trend for intimacy co-ordinators.
The television series is based on the 1988 novel of the same name by Dame Jilly Cooper, 88, who is somewhat bemused by the growth of the on-set sex-scene coach.
'In my day when people were acting they just used to jump on each other and roll around without having anyone telling them what to do', she told The Times, adding: 'I suppose the world's changed, hasn't it?'
Had she been an actress, Cooper said, she would not have been comfortable with having an intimacy co-ordinator choreographing her sex scenes.
'I'd be very embarrassed,' she said. 'I wouldn't like it myself — but then no one has any fun any more, do they?'
Cooper's view puts her in line with established actresses including Kim Basinger, 71, and Gwyneth Paltrow, 52.
In March, Paltrow said she told an on-set intimacy co-ordinator to 'step a little bit back' when filming sex scenes with Timothée Chalamet during filming of Marty Supreme, a film about a ping pong protégé.
But others, including Emma Thompson, 66, and Rachel Zegler, 24, have praised them for the reassuring environment that they help to foster on set.
Cooper made the comments after Danny Dyer, who will play Freddie Jones again in the second series of Rivals, said that producers had 'used every intimacy coach in the land'.
Dyer, 47, said that it was a 'mad thing' to do a sex scene — he took part in several in the first series, which aired in October, including one outside with Katherine Parkinson, who plays the wife of a neighbour.
'You are legally allowed to tongue someone else. It is part of your job. Depending on your partner, it is OK if you fancy it,' Dyer told the Daily Mail. 'On Rivals there are a lot of intimacy coaches. I think we used every one in the land.'
Fellow Rivals actor Aidan Turner, 41, said that there had been a pair of intimacy co-ordinators employed during the filming of the first series in 2023. 'We have so much sex on our show, we have to have two intimacy coaches. Two!' he told The Times. 'I've never wanted a season two of anything more in my life.'
Despite Dyer's claim, the number of coaches employed is not thought to have increased hugely for the second series, which is expected to air on Disney+ in 2026. Filming began in May.
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Cooper had another theory for the growing popularity of intimacy co-ordinators: young people no longer know what they are doing.
'Perhaps the problem is that everyone is doing it less and are less practised because they're all jogging and doing lots of exercise instead,' she said.