Rebecca Ferguson reveals why she 'doesn't need' intimacy coordinators to film sex scenes
The new Peaky Blinders movie sees Irish acting star Cillian Murphy return as the flat-capped gangster Tommy Shelby in a new time period, with a new love interest, played by Rebecca Ferguson, who has now shared her thoughts on intimacy coordinators.
In the new Netflix production, five years after the TV series ended, the exiled Birmingham crook is forced to return to his home city amid the ravages of World War Two after a visit from former lover Kaulo Chirklo, one of a pair of twins played by Ferguson in the upcoming film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.
Along with Ferguson and Murphy, Saltburn's Barry Keoghan, Pulp Fiction's Tim Roth, and Adolescence's Stephen Graham also star.
The 42-year-old Dune actor, naturally, gets hot and heavy with Murphy, 49, during the film, but after 25 years in the industry, Ferguson has said she had no need for a sexual referee when it got steamy on set, though she did admit to saying something odd to her co-star.
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She told the Radio Times that she doesn't need the extra help when it comes to filming intimate scenes, saying: "I think it’s wonderful that we can have intimacy coordinators and sometimes they are needed, but for me, it’s very off-putting and it makes me feel very uncomfortable because I have enormous boundaries and I can verbalise them."
Questioning the utility of having a coordinator oversee her scene with Murphy, Ferguson added: "So we could sit down and say, what do you need to feel safe? What do I need to feel safe? And then she could step out of the scene."
Intimacy coordinators have been a standard part of almost any production since 2018, both to improve safety and communication for actors taking part in sex scenes, but also to prevent legal action should someone step over an established line.
On SAG-AFTRA’s website, they state that all union-made films must simulate sexual behavior under the purview of an intimacy coordinator, stating that 'at no time should a performer auditioning or working under a SAG-AFTRA contract engage in, or be asked to engage in, actual sex acts'.
They add in their guidelines: “Actual sex includes genital contact without a physical barrier, regardless of whether the performer is clothed or unclothed.”
Ferguson also shared more about how she prepared for her sex scene with Murphy in the new film, and she may have creeped out the Oppenheimer star with her level of intimate knowledge.
She said: "I had called Cillian and asked him how he wanted to work. It sounds so silly, but I said, 'I’ve studied your sex scenes…'
"And he went, 'That’s really weird and awkward.' And I went, 'I know, but bear with me. This is not just a regular sex scene.
"This is not us getting our kit off, getting on with it, bish bash bosh. This is a moment of release. This is a moment of intimacy, there’s magic'."
Murphy, who has variously described himself as 'shy', has spoken previously about how these sex scenes work when the cameras aren't rolling, with the production putting two romantic leads through the 'chemistry test'
He told The Guardian in 2023: “They put two actors in a room to see if there’s any spark, and have all the producers and director at a table watching. I don’t know what metric they use, and it seems so outrageously silly, but sometimes you get a chemistry, and nobody knows why.”
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man will be released on Netflix in the US on March 20, 2026.
Topics: Peaky Blinders, Cillian Murphy, Netflix
William Morgan