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Film and TV sets have seen a recent surge in the need for intimacy coordinators — folks who coordinate sex scenes — but according to one Game of Thrones actress, the HBO show skipped the precaution entirely. While discussing her new series The Tower, Gemma Whelan opened up about what it was like to film sex scenes on the hit fantasy series.
Whelan has one of the most talked-about sex scenes in TV: in her first season (Season 2) on the show, her character Yara and Alfie Allen‘s Theon have a steamy reach-around horse-riding session.
“Alfie was very much, ‘Is this OK? How are we going to make this work?’” Whelan told The Guardian. “With intimacy directors, it’s choreography – you move there, I move there, and permission and consent is given before you start. It is a step in the right direction.”
And as for those intimacy directors, the actress says they were nowhere to be found on set of the HBO series. When she was asked if actors were left to go wild on Game of Thrones, Whelan gave a firm “yes” as an answer.
“Almost literally. They used to just say, ‘When we shout action, go for it!’, and it could be a sort of frenzied mess,” Whelan said of the sex scenes. “But between the actors there was always an instinct to check in with each other.”
Whelan went on to explain a scene that took place in a brothel where she received little-to-no help in terms of nude and sexual acting. Again, she was left to just work it out with her on-screen partner.
“There was a scene in a brothel with a woman and she was so exposed that we talked together about where the camera would be and what she was happy with,” Whelan explained. “A director might say, ‘Bit of boob biting, then slap her bum and go!’, but I’d always talk it through with the other actor.”
Whelan was on Game of Thrones as Yara Greyjoy from Seasons 2-4, taking a break for a season, returning for Season 6 and continuing until the show’s final season as a recurring character.