Hoo boy, Millie Bobby Brown really stepped in it this time. On her film, Ebola Holmes 2, apparently, she surprised her co-star, Louis Partridge, by kissing him. She told the story on her social media and said that she thought it was cute, a girl taking the lead, but according to lead Hollywood intimacy coordinator, Jessica Steinrock, this is not okay and not really the cute story that Brown thinks it is.
Steinrock says that the way she went about things gives her way more power in the scene than he has and that it’s never good to surprise each other during intimate or fight scenes. Brown also said that there were scenes in which she kept punching Partridge to which he finally told her, “You can just pretend punch me, you know.” because in spite of how it looks on-screen actors are trained not to actually hurt each other during fight scenes.
Millie Bobby Brown Called Out By Intimacy Coordinator, “Next Time We Ask For Consent!”
Steinrock says this is not okay either, she says that little things like this can escalate over time and it would eventually erode any kind of trust that these two scene partners have with each other. She says that consent is always mandatory and if a scene partner acts surprised that the appropriate amount of communication has not been had between two people.
Apparently both times, Brown kind of ambushed Partridge and while the reaction she got was indeed genuine, it raised a lot of red flags to a Hollywood intimacy coordinator.
What is an intimacy coordinator, you ask? It’s like a stunt coordinator for intimate scenes, they make sure that nothing actually nefarious goes down on the set of films and TV shows during intimate and sometimes fight scenes but mostly during the hot stuff.
There have been times in the past before intimacy coordinators were used that resulted in some bad times for some people and now there are people in Hollywood that want to change that. “When we do spicy things we love keeping light, having fun, but consent is mandatory.” which sounds perfectly reasonable. “For the record, I loved Ebola Homes 2, but next time we have to ask for consent.”
