WHAT DOESN’T THRILL YOU…
THE FORMER FIGHT DIRECTOR, 33, ON HOW SHE BECAME A CHOREOGRAPHER FOR SEX SCENES ON SHOWS LIKE NETFLIX REGENCY ROMP BRIDGERTON
THE first two months of the year are usually earmarked by publishers for the launch of debut crime novels they hope will go stellar – think of 2016’s The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins, which inspired a successful movie adaptation.
Abigail Dean’s Girl A clearly has the honour of being this year’s mosthyped, with one breathless women’s magazine calling it the year’s biggest ‘mystery thriller’. Better buckle up for a ferociously exciting thriller ride then, eh? Except Girl A is not a thriller. This is no whodunit, or even a whydunit.
There is no mystery. It’s set 15 years on from when Lex Gracie – who is
Girl A – escaped from the family house in which she and most of her siblings had been chained up. We know their religious father, the firestarter of this blazing furnace of abuse, shot himself on the day of her escape and that their mother has recently died in prison.
Girl A is more of an exploration of how victims of abuse deal with the aftermath of living in what the tabloids in Girl A call
‘A House of Horrors’. How do you cope with the backwash of parental abuse? How do you adjust to ‘normal’ life?
Lex is an admirably fully formed character. She lives deep inside herself, her behaviour as flat and featureless as a salt lake. Her one emotional tic is a reliance on alcohol but even this is used to scour away any emerging contours of conspicuous warmth.
Yet, as well developed as Lex is, the other siblings – apart from her odious oldest brother, Ethan – are wraiths, insubstantial and largely uninteresting, and the story never really threatens to ignite, despite a baffling plot twist.
How are you involved in the build-up to filming a simulated sex scene?
We read the scripts and look at the intimacy scenes, and there’s a discussion as to what we need to be called in for and what we don’t. That comes down to actor comfort level. We have to be there for scenes of simulated sex and nudity. We have come into this industry as advocates, and that’s important, but at heart we really are choreographers.
Bridgerton director Sheree Folkson and actress Kathryn Drysdale have sung your praises. Are there scenes you’re particularly proud of?
There are a few but one is the wedding night between Daphne and Simon, directed by Sheree. Her vision of how to do that scene was just incredible. It’s all flipped from the male gaze to the female gaze. Typically it would be a naked lady lying on a bed with the camera moving up and down her body and, of course, this time that wasn’t it. We weren’t following the curves of Daphne, we were placed directly behind Simon.
Phoebe Dynevor, who plays Daphne, has talked about filming sex scenes on other productions where the direction has been simply, ‘go for it’. Are things changing?
I hope so. Having an intimacy coordinator is becoming more standard. There is still a long way to go but it is exciting working with young actors now whose experiences of simulated sex scenes have only been with intimacy coordinators and have only been positive. With more experienced actors, every single one of them has a horror story about either them personally or someone they know. So they are coming into a sex scene with a bit of trepidation or anxiety.
What questions do actors ask you?
They might ask about the nudity rider [contract clauses]. It might just be them informing me, ‘Hey, I’ve got a dodgy right shoulder so can we avoid this choreography?’ or ‘I had a really bad experience where someone grabbed my buttocks so if we could avoid that…’ That information is helpful when it comes to choreography.
What sort of things are you taking into account when you do risk assessments?
We are taking into account location, the type of choreography we are doing and the type of nudity we are doing, because context is everything. That’s what’s been missing from intimacy scenes for a long time. On a nudity rider you can say, ‘Yes, I agree to simulate sex,’ but are you simulating sex with three other people or by yourself or outside at night in the freezing cold or on a romantic candlelit bed?
What are postclosure exercises?
What I’ll do on the day is a closure exercise between the actors because we want there to be a divide between the personal and the professional. These scenes can be incredibly taxing, physically, emotionally and mentally. I think it’s really difficult for people to just walk out of the door after that because you are still carrying it somewhere in your body.
You might be carrying tension in your shoulders. You might still be a little bit in the character and a little bit still in the scene. We take some time at the end of the day to work with the actors so that when they leave, they feel that they are leaving all of that intimacy and all of that work they did that day on set. They can go home and be the person they are when they’re not at work.
It’s incredible this has all taken so long to happen…
I think it’s really the rise of the importance of mental health. If trauma has occurred from a simulated sex scene it may not be immediately visible – chances are it’s manifesting over the next few days, weeks, months, years. So it wasn’t seen as something the industry needed to
do anything about.
Did you start in stunt coordinating then go to intimacy?
I trained and worked as a fight director but I went into intimacy because there are so many protocols and procedures and techniques when working with violence, yet there were absolutely none when working with intimacy. Both are equally dangerous, just in different directions. So I started to see this big gap that no one seemed to be addressing. I started my company in 2016.
What sort of resistance have you met with in the industry?
When we were first researching this, the response I got consistently was: ‘The industry has always been like this. It’s never going to change.’ One comment was, ‘Oh, do we need an eating director now if we’re going to have an intimacy director?’ It was very disparaging but then the #MeToo movement hit and everything was brought to light.
What are the misconceptions about your job?
There’s a perception that what you see on screen is what it’s like in real life. I can guarantee that is not the case. You see a beautiful scene between two people and it can be incredibly romantic but what you are not seeing is someone calling ‘cut’ in the middle of it. It’s a closed set but there still are people around. People are wearing modesty garments. There is far more paperwork involved – if you don’t like spreadsheets, this is not the job for you.
AGED 22, Simon Dolan was close to rock bottom. On the dole for 15 months, he was drowning in debt and living off credit cards. In desperation he spent his last £10 on an advert in the local paper offering to do cheap accounting for small businesses, having worked in an accountants office for 18 months. Three weeks later he got a phone call from a local florist, and SJD Accountancy was born. In 2014 he sold the firm for a nine-figure sum.
Now 51, Simon owns a huge business empire in areas as diverse as accountancy, PR and aviation, including The PHA Group, Oneserve, Jota Aviation, BajaBoard, COAST Autonomous, Jota Sport and Snag Tights. Last year he launched a legal battle over the legality of lockdown.
What was the first memory of having any money in your pocket?
I had a paper round at the local hospital when I was about 12. I earned £3 for my first shift and it took me all morning to complete the round. I think I realised at that point the special feeling and personal rewards of earning your own money. That said, I still can’t stand the smell of hospitals to this day.
What did you spend it on?
David Bowie records. That’s where most of my money went. I think of money as a tool. You convert it into something you like.
When you left school at 16 did you ever think you would be financially successful?
I never gave it much thought, to be honest. I suppose the pertinent thing is that I never thought I wouldn’t be finally successful.
What financial advice would you have given to the younger you?
There is no easy way to earn money. My parents taught me that if you want money, you have to earn it. From age 10 I was pushed to be selfsufficient. I’ve tried hard to instil this mentality in my own children.
You lived off credit cards at 22 – is credit ever advisable?
Yes of course, provided you can afford it at the time, and also, crucially, even if you lose your job. I am not like my parents who were of the generation that believed you should save up for something you wanted to buy, instead of getting into debt. The first thing I did after I turned 18 was get a £2,000 bank loan to buy music equipment. I have never had any qualms about borrowing money to buy something and I don’t mind being in debt – but I make sure I can pay back whatever I borrow. That said, it’s not really advisable to take out loans on depreciating assets.
What was your big break financially?
That £10 turned into £200m over the years, so it would be difficult to top that. Age 22 I was living handto-mouth on £40 a week and I had racked up debt out of necessity. I was unemployed with a £200-amonth mortgage and I had to buy food. I was desperate, so I went to a newsagents near where I lived in a grotty part of Manchester, and asked the owner if he had any paper rounds. He asked: ‘For your son?’ I said: ‘No, for me.’ He said: ‘No, sorry.’ That was a pivotal moment. Straight afterwards I had the idea to put an ad in a local newspaper offering to do end-of-year accounts for people.
What happened next?
A client phoned three weeks later and I did her accounts. That meant I could place another ad, which got another client. Spending £10 on that advert in 1992 was the best money decision I ever made. It was how my business SJD Accountancy was born. Twenty-two years later I sold it for more than £100million.
I guess that’s when you knew you were financially secure for life!?
I don’t. The world can change in a heartbeat, 2020 is testament to that.
Being worth £200million, how do you interact with that much money?
You simply live life. It’s not something you think about. What you probably appreciate above all else is the freedom it gives you – to travel and to experience new things.
‘I am still careful with money – 2020 showed the world can change in a heartbeat’
Do figures like that seem like something you can understand in your head?
Yes, I have always been good with numbers, but it doesn’t feel like anything. It’s relative. Most Western people are infinitely richer than billions who live in impoverished countries but I’m sure they don’t spend time thinking about it.
Are you still careful with your money?
Probably more so now, ironically. It’s about choosing things that bring value to your life. The days of buying trinkets are, I think, gone for me. I’m careful how I invest money, how I look after it.
Most extravagant purchase?
David Bowie’s Balinese mansion in Mustique. It’s probably the purchase that brings me most joy.
What do you regret buying?
I don’t do regrets. I’m of the mindset that whatever happens in the past makes you the person you are today. If I was pushed, though, investing in Contracts For Difference in 1999 wasn’t a good move. I lost £100,000.
What would you do if you only had a tenner left in your pocket now?
Panic. It took me a long time to get where I am today. I’d rather not start again from scratch.