SAG-AFTRA Announces Intimacy Coordinator Registry and Pre-Registry Lists

SAG-AFTRA, the nation’s largest union for entertainment and broadcast professionals, today announced the publication of an intimacy coordinator registry and pre-registry. The registry and pre-registry lists are provided as a resource to help producers identify qualified and experienced intimacy coordinators. The lists are a major element of the union’s yearslong collaboration with the intimacy coordinator community to create a safer work environment by assisting actors performing in scenes involving nudity, simulated sex or other intimate scenes.

There are currently 40 intimacy coordinators from the United States, UK, Canada and Australia on the registry, as well as five intimacy coordinators on the pre-registry. All have met the Recommended Standards for Qualifications, Training and Vetting of Intimacy Coordinators, and those on the pre-registry list are still working toward meeting the required work experience days. 

Said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, “As we, at long last, move into a time where a performer’s personal space matters, a new field has emerged: intimacy coordinators. 

This is an important step forward for all SAG-AFTRA members and will improve the atmosphere on sets and in productions requiring intimate scenes. With the presence of the intimacy coordinator, performers will be protected in potentially vulnerable situations.

These professionals function as an advocate and liaison between performers and productions, facilitating communications and helping with movement and choreography when nudity and intimate scenes are being filmed. It is as much to the benefit of the production as it is for the performer.

Long gone is the time when married characters are shot sleeping in twin beds, so the need for specially trained intimacy coordinators should be part and parcel of every production that involves nudity, simulated sex or hyper-exposed scenes.

With the advent of intimacy coordinators to any production, we continue to move the needle forward to creating a more honorable industry that is respectful to the feelings of all those participants who make it great.”

The registry and pre-registry list follow the establishment last year of the first industrywide accreditation for intimacy coordinator training programs and build on the Standards and Protocols for the Use of Intimacy Coordinators originally introduced in January 2020. Together, the accreditation standards, protocols and registries will help protect and support SAG-AFTRA members and ensure they are able to work in a manner that maintains their personal and professional dignity while realizing a director’s creative vision.

“SAG-AFTRA has worked hard in cooperation with the intimacy coordinator community to establish standards that can ensure that producers have access to qualified intimacy coordinators to work with our members on SAG-AFTRA productions,” said SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “Intimacy coordinators are a crucial protection for performers working in intimate scenes. This essential resource will further normalize and promote the use of intimacy coordinators, helping to change the culture in Hollywood and beyond.”

The registry and pre-registry lists are provided as a resource for employers for informational purposes only and are not intended to imply an endorsement of any individual or company by SAG-AFTRA. 

The union has reviewed submitted documentation and confirmed that minimum requirements have been met. With the release of the initial registry and pre-registry lists, SAG-AFTRA will begin the process for receiving authorization and conducting background checks on all intimacy coordinators named to the lists. Producers are not required to hire from this list, and SAG-AFTRA is not a service provider for training or certification programs.

The names of those who qualified for the registry and pre-registry can be found HERE. Submissions to the registry and pre-registry lists can be submitted at any time, and the lists will be continually updated. 

About SAG-AFTRA

SAG-AFTRA represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other entertainment and media professionals. SAG-AFTRA members are the faces and voices that entertain and inform America and the world. A proud affiliate of the AFL-CIO, SAG-AFTRA has national offices in Los Angeles and New York and local offices nationwide representing members working together to secure the strongest protections for entertainment and media artists into the 21st century and beyond. Visit SAG-AFTRA online at SAGAFTRA.org.