Alicia Vikander opens up about the lack of protection for cast members during intimate scenes on set before the time of intimacy coordinators.

Alicia Vikander has opened up about feeling unprotected on set during nude scenes. The 33-year-old Swedish actress, has recently been cast as Catherine Parr in the Tudor-era thriller, Firebrand. Vikander has starred in numerous films in her career thus far, with one of her most well-known recent roles being Lara Croft in Tomb Raider and its upcoming sequel.

Vikander began her career at the age of 14 in 2008, acting in various short films and minor television roles in Sweden, long before intimacy coordinators became key crew members. She came to international attention for her roles in the 2014 film, Ex-Machina, and later 2015's The Danish Girl opposite Eddie Redmayne, the latter of which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She recently wrapped filming on the upcoming HBO remake of Irma Vep, which will itself deal with the topic of intimacy coordinators on set.

In an interview with Harper's Bazaar, Vikander discussed the experience of shooting intimate scenes. She praised the work of the intimacy coordinators, who are now common in the industry, while expressing her disappointment that they weren't an industry standard sooner. Though she didn't name any specific films, she mentioned one troubling incident where an actor was left without a robe on set for hours. Read what Vikander said below:

"The only thing that can’t be improvised is an intimate scene – you have to make choreography and stick to it. It’s the worst thing ever to do those scenes. I am very comfortable with my body and I’ve done quite a bit of nudity and sex scenes, but it’s never easy. [Intimacy coaches] should have existed at the beginning of my career. I’ve been in situations that were not fine, where I didn’t feel I was protected. [On one occasion] everyone was busy doing their own thing and, in the middle, you have an actor who sits there naked for a couple of hours. And someone is supposed to arrive with a robe, and they don’t. It comes afterwards – that was not right. I should have been looked after."

Though Vikander never specifies which film sets in particular she's referring to, she has done nude scenes in 2017's critically panned Tulip Fever, the last-ever film to be released by The Weinstein Company, and in Netflix's 2019 psychological thriller, Earthquake Bird. Intimacy coordinators have only really become standard in the film and television industries after the revelations of #MeToo and the Harvey Weinstein scandal in 2017, which led actors to demand better protection and safeguards during intimate scenes. Their job is to explain the choreography of intimate scenes to cast members and to be a voice for any concerns that they might have if there are aspects that make them uncomfortable.

Vikander's comments speak to the importance of intimacy coordinators on set and the huge steps that the industry has taken in order to help safeguard actors. Even if no harassment took place, an actor being left naked on set for hours suggests a worrying lack of concern for the welfare of cast members. Though intimacy coordinators are still not employed on every set that requires them — Netflix didn't start using them until Sex Education — they're thankfully becoming increasingly more commonplace. As Vikander's career continues to go from strength to strength, changing practices in the industry hopefully mean that she won't have to feel left unprotected again.

More: Ex-Machina's Alternate Ending Explained

Source: Harper's Bazaar