Following numerous instances of sexual misconduct behind the scenes in Hollywood that have come to light in the past five years, more productions are hiring intimacy coordinators to make sure there is mutual consent on sets. As they become more popular on movies and TV shows, there’s been an ongoing conversation about whether they are important to actors. The latest piece of the discussion comes from one intimacy coordinator, Jessica Steinrock, who respectfully called out Millie Bobby Brown for her explanation of how a kiss went down on the set of Enola Holmes 2.
Jessica Steinrock has worked on sets including Never Have I Ever, Moxie and Yellowjackets and is one of around 50 intimacy coordinators to be listed on SAG-AFTRA's registry of qualified intimacy coordinators. Steinrock recently took to TikTok to share her thoughts on surprise kisses via an Enola Holmes interview.
@intimacycoordinator ♬ original sound - Intimacy Coordinator
Steinrock shared a clip of Millie Bobby Brown talking about her kissing scene with Louis Partridge for Netflix where the 18-year-old actress shared that she “grabbed his face and kissed him” much to his surprise on the set of Enola Holmes. Brown called the moment between her and her co-star “so cute,” but Steinrock’s reaction did not match up.
The intimacy coordinator shared that she loves Millie Bobby Brown, but the moment was “not the cute story you think it is.” While she gave the Stranger Things star the benefit of the doubt, saying she and Partridge likely have trust built between them, Steinrock believes the interaction is the result of Brown not asking consent from Partridge to kiss him, leading to the surprised look on his face.
As the intimacy coordinator went on to explain, it sounds like the right communication steps that she works with actors on in her profession did not go down as it is supposed to. Plus, she pointed out Brown has inherently more power than Partridge in that situation because she’s a bigger star, and a producer on Enola Holmes 2. She shared that “little things like this can escalate over time,” hence the importance of intimacy coordinators.
As the comment section fired back, with one person saying they were “pretty sure it was in the script” and another saying “I think they were acting,” Steinbeck spoke to her point further. In her words:
My job is to make sure there are no surprises. I trust actors to be good enough to act surprised… We don’t improvise punches and we don’t improvise kisses.
As the conversation around intimacy coordinators has become more popular, celebrities like Lauren Graham and Katherine Heigl have spoken about being initially taken aback by the professionals being added to sets. Graham recalled biting her tongue when she met with one on the set of her family-friendly series Mighty Ducks regarding an innocent kiss and Heigl was weirded out at first before coming around to it. If there's one constant in life, it's change.
Steinrock’s thoughts on how Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes 2 kiss went down certainly allows the public to better understand the lines that intimacy coordinators are looking out for on the set of productions, whether or not they are sexually explicit films. You can stream Enola Holmes 2 with a Netflix subscription and check out our interviews with Millie Bobby Brown and the cast of the sequel.
