“If you’re a nervous auditioner to begin with, to then say, ‘Now let’s have you make out with a complete stranger’... Put some music on or something.”
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Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars have weighed in on intimate chemistry tests between actors — and whether they’re even necessary.
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For the Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actress Roundtable, Anna Sawai, Jennifer Aniston, Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman, Jodie Foster, Brie Larson, and Sofía Vergara came together to discuss a range of topics relating to their careers. At one point, they were asked to comment on some of Anne Hathaway’s comments about chemistry tests during the movie audition process.
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If you missed it, Anne told V magazine in April that in the 2000s it was “considered normal to ask an actor to make out with other actors to test for chemistry.”
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“I was told, ‘We have ten guys coming today and you’re cast. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’ And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded gross,” she said.
Despite finding the whole thing very uncomfortable, Anne admitted that she always went along with such situations out of fear of being perceived as “difficult” to work with.
“I was so young and terribly aware how easy it was to lose everything by being labeled ‘difficult,’ so I just pretended I was excited and got on with it. It wasn’t a power play; no one was trying to be awful or hurt me. It was just a very different time, and now we know better,” she said.
Discussing these quotes and how times have changed in the industry, all the actors at the roundtable agreed that they’d found themselves in similarly awkward situations during their acting careers. What’s more, Jennifer and Nicole suggested that chemistry tests aren’t even necessary to make an onscreen partnership believable.
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“You can not have chemistry, and onscreen, it’s made. There’s a way you can shoot things,” Nicole said. “I think just relying on chemistry is lazy. There’s the writing. There’s the interaction. You can literally be directed through it.”
Still on the topic of chemistry tests, Jennifer said that the pressure can often dilute any natural chemistry between actors anyway, saying: “When you’re in an audition room, you’re already at a disadvantage.”
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“Maybe you’d have chemistry with this person if you were in a different environment and not, like, ‘Create chemistry. Ready? Go!’” she continued.
Jen also described herself as a “terrible auditioner,” noting that her nerves would make chemistry tests all the more difficult.
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“So, if you’re a nervous auditioner, to begin with, to then say, ‘Now let’s have you make out with a complete stranger,’ it’s very uncomfortable,” she told her fellow actors. “Put some music on or something.”
Although intimacy coordinators are widely used on movie and TV sets to make intimate scenes more comfortable for actors in situations like this, Jen has said previously that she’s been in the industry long enough to “figure” it out herself.
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For context, an intimacy coordinator is a professional who comes on to set when actors are shooting sex scenes and anything else that could be potentially compromising, like scenes involving drug use or nudity. The role involves not only supporting the actors but also assisting in choreography and ensuring that the cast and crew feel comfortable as well.
Speaking about her first-ever sex scene on The Morning Show late last year, Jen told Variety: “They asked us if we wanted an intimacy coordinator. I’m from the olden days, so I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ They said, ‘Where someone asks you if you’re OK,’ and I’m like, ‘Please, this is awkward enough!’”
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In response, Jennifer assured producers that she and her costar, Jon Hamm, were “seasoned” pros and therefore didn’t need any support. “We can figure this one out,” she recalled saying.
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“I never felt uncomfortable,” she added. “Jon was such a gentleman, always — I mean every move, every cut, ‘You OK?’ It was also very choreographed.”
At the time, Jennifer was criticized online for her seemingly “flippant” attitude, which fans thought minimized the importance of intimacy coordinators’ work and how they keep actors safe on set.
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“‘Where someone asks if you’re okay’ is such a minimizing and disrespectful description of what an intimacy coordinator actually does,” one person wrote on Xin response to her Variety interview, amassing more than 45,000 likes.
“Having seen firsthand the kind of work an intimacy coordinator actually does, it actually deflates the awkwardness and helps actors build boundaries and trust with one another,” another person agreed. “If it’s not for her that’s fine but it’s legitimate work that can be effective for performance.”
You can find the Hollywood Reporter’s full Drama Actress Roundtable here.
- Jennifer Aniston
- Nicole Kidman
- Anne Hathaway
- Ellen DurneyBuzzFeed Staff
