It turns out Amy Dunne wasn't the only thing missing in Gone Girl—the set was without an intimacy coordinator.
Neil Patrick Harris, who played the ex-boyfriend of Rosamund Pike's character in the 2014 movie, said he and his co-star were left to their own devices when asked to choreograph a major sex scene.
"They said, like, ‘Go rehearse that and present it to us.' Rosamund Pike and I just rehearsed how we wanted to have the sex scene happen," Harris revealed to ELLE August 1. "We had to go find [director] David Fincher, who was in another room, and he came back in and sat there while we showed him. He was like, ‘Yeah, that will work.' But that was different times."
Different times, indeed!
On NPH's new Netflix series Uncoupled, he plays Michael Lawson, a New York City real estate agent who gets dumped by his partner of 17 years. Lawson is forced to re-enter the dating pool, which means the show, naturally, involves a lot of sex. This time, an intimacy coordinator was a constant presence on set.
"I had never worked with one before," Harris said. "They're required now. Every time you're doing a scene with any kind of intimacy, it makes perfect sense to have someone that's there that's going to be aware of anything you're planning on doing and, if anyone is uncomfortable with anything, they can go to the coordinator to make that clear."
The experience of filming Uncoupled was an eye-opening experience for Harris in more ways than one. After all, he learned how to take a great NSFW pic!
"Apparently, it's an angle thing," he told E! News' Daily Pop July 29. "I guess you need some fair amount of warmth, temperature-wise, maybe a nice humidity level. Some sort of lotion, maybe. Looking fresh."
There is no end to education.
All eight episodes of Uncoupled are available to stream on Netflix.