While fans continue to long for Kim Cattrall on And Just Like That…, the 65-year-old actress has happily moved on. Since her days as the s-x-positive Samantha Jones on the HBO series, she has noticed a stark difference in how love scenes are filmed on set.
In Queer as Folk, one of two new shows she’s on this year (the other is How I Met Your Father), Cattrall shot her “first nonbinary love scene.” Instead of feeling n-ked and vulnerable like she did on the set of S-x and the City with her many bedroom scenes, there was an intimacy coordinator to protect her and the other actor. “And for the first time in my career, I was introduced to someone who had the position on a set that I had no idea what they did — her heading was ‘intimacy coach.’ I thought, ‘Excuse me?!?’ I never had an intimacy coach,” she revealed to Variety. Calling the experience “fantastic,” she noted it was a world of difference from “the wardrobe department holding a housecoat for you when they said cut or putting a towel over you” on her former HBO show.
“They had this person there who’d say: “OK, stop! We need this protected there.” It was like a fairy godmother,” she said. Cattrall wished she had more protection in the past, but SAG-AFTRA, the TV and film union for actors, didn’t introduce the on-set role until 2019. It was a position that came out of the #MeToo movement to help prevent s-xual harassment and create a safe space for actors when they filmed n-de scenes. It’s a 180-degree pivot from the S-x and the City for Cattrall. “The most I ever got was for [costume designer] Pat Field to make this — she called it a “K.C. Cup” [“Kim Cattrall Cup”] that would cover, like a jockstrap, both actors if the scene required it,” she explained.
While Cattrall is protective of Samantha, she is definitely not returning to the show — like ever. And there was always one requirement to portraying the character to its fullest — n-dity. “I don’t want to be n-de anymore,” she summed up. “I’m 65. I’m in great shape. But I’m just not interested. I feel like I filled my quota on that one — and without an intimacy coach.”
