An Intimacy Coordinator Reacts to ‘The Idol’ Pilot: ‘I Felt Betrayed’ That HBO ‘Used Us as the Butt of the Joke’

HBO made history in 2018 for hiring Alicia Rodis on The Deuce, making her the first-ever intimacy coordinator on a major U.S. production. Then, in the June 4 premiere episode of HBOs The Idol, a fictional intimacy coordinator got locked in a bathroom for doing his job.

In the scene, pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) is shooting photos for her album cover when she pulls open her robe to reveal her nipples. Immediately, the mousy and neurotic intimacy coordinator on set (played by Scott Turner Schofield) interrupts to remind the photographer (Eddy Chen) that the nudity rider in Jocelyns contract only permits the depiction of her side-boob, under-boob and side flank. The contract has been reviewed by the label and her people, he says, so any changes made require a 48-hour delay of the photo shoot, despite that Jocelyn chose to show her breasts without being directed to.

Im not allowed to show my body? she asks the coordinator, who stutters, Not in the general human rights structure of it all. Eventually, Jocelyns manager Chaim (Hank Azaria) steps in, shoving the coordinator behind a door and paying a random passerby $5,000 to keep him trapped until the shoot concludes.

Its certainly arguable that the scene serves to emphasize how unprotected and exploited Jocelyn is, a theme continuously explored in The Idol, which was co-created by Sam Levinson, Abel The Weeknd Tesfaye and Reza Fahim. At the same time, intimacy coordination is still a relatively new field that even the entertainment industry still misunderstands, and to depict one as jittery and paperwork-obsessed, with corny, wide-eyed lines about how his work is actually very progressive, doesnt come without complications. So Variety spoke to Marci Liroff, an intimacy coordinator with no connection to The Idol, to evaluate the impact and accuracy of the scene.

To be honest, I had a very visceral reaction. I was appalled, says Liroff, whose credits as an intimacy coordinator include Hightown, From Scratch and This Is Us. Im not alone in this, in terms of my intimacy coordinator communities: We look at HBO as our stalwart home, so to speak, because their work with Alicia Rodis was so good that they made it mandatory that all projects on HBO [featuring sexually intimate scenes] must hire in an intimacy coordinator. It set a standard, and many other streamers and networks have followed along. So I felt really betrayed that they were making fun of us and the job. They were using us as the butt of the joke.

But Liroff says she now finds herself torn: I have been in some situations where theres a lot of pushback from a director or producer who doesnt quite understand what we bring to a set. Our position is very similar to a stunt coordinator, and you would never do some of the stuff that [has been done to me] to a stunt coordinator. So I sat with it and I realized that this actually was a very accurate although heightened and extreme depiction of some of the crazy pushback that Ive experienced.

As Liroff explains it, intimacy coordinators first have meetings with the people in charge, in this case, probably the photographer and her manager to find out what theyre looking for. Id drill down and get very specific about what body points we are going to be seeing. Then, theres a one-on-one meeting between the intimacy coordinator and the performer to get a sense of what theyre okay with. If the performers boundaries dont match up with a directors requests, continued meetings happen until the creatives agree to solutions that maintain performers comfort, then a nudity rider is put in writing and signed. Any changes to that rider require a 48-hour delay in production, so that a performer is never put on the spot with a new request and forced to rethink their boundaries while on set.

In The Idol, its obvious that Jocelyn has not met with the intimacy coordinator in advance, but this isnt necessarily inaccurate: I have a feeling that Jocelyns team looked this over and spoke for her. There are many times when Ill be in a situation where I need to speak directly to the talent, and lets say theyre very high-level talent, and I never actually get to speak specifically to that person, which is really a shame, Liroff says.

But that doesnt explain why Jocelyns managers who are very comfortable with Jocelyn showing off her body would have agreed to censor her nipples in the first place.

Since The Idol premiered, much critique has been made of its sexual material, including in Varietys review, which said that the series plays like a sordid male fantasy. That discourse added to an already hairy press cycle that was most prominently studded with allegations of a toxic set environment as well as extreme material that didnt make the final cut, such as a scene where Jocelyn allegedly was begging [Tesfayes character] to rape her.

Based on the scenes that have made it to the screen, as an intimacy coordinator, Liroff feels ambivalent about how the explicit content is handled. On the one hand, the performer at the center of the series has clearly given the filmmakers her consent.

People are talking about how exploited Lily-Rose Depp is, but Ive also watched and read several interviews with her, and what is very clear to me is that she is 1,000% on board with this, she says. This is not some young, helpless actress that comes from middle America, shows up in Hollywood and is completely taken advantage of.

At the same time, Depps (and Jocelyns) feelings are not the only ones that come into play here.

We have a nudity rider in place not only for the performer. Its also for the crew, Liroff says. The crew needs a heads up on what theyre going to be experiencing that day. They need to know if theyre seeing, for instance, a very violent rape scene. A scene that is very sensitive could be triggering, not just for the performers, but for the people that are watching it from 10 different angles. I usually talk to them ahead of time, saying, This could be potentially triggering for you. I want you to notice the signs. Come to me if thats happening. Take a breather. Go outside. Get some cold water. Its the crew giving their general consent to witness this.

This job is very nuanced and complex. Its very hard to explain, in one scene, what we do, Liroff concludes. And that scene used us as the butt of a joke, at the end of the day.