Why Ewan McGregor Felt an Intimacy Coordinator Was 'Necessary' Filming with Wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Though Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead have been together for several years, the couple still sees the benefit of working with an intimacy coordinator when filming together.

McGregor, 52, and Winstead, 39, are currently starring in the new Paramount+ limited series, A Gentleman in Moscow, which required them to film sex scenes together. However, McGregor believes “it’s still necessary because it’s also about the crew.”

“It’s odd to be naked in front of people, it’s odd to be intimate in front of the camera,” he told Radio Times, per Variety. “If you were doing a dance scene, you’d have a choreographer. It’s an important part of the work now, because it’s somebody that the director and actors meet in the middle.”

McGregor also highlighted the importance of having intimacy coordinators in productions to ensure the protection of young actors and the prevention of them performing in “unnecessary” scenes. In doing so, he mentioned his daughter Esther, who is also an actor.

“My daughter is 22. If an older, famous director goes to a 22-year-old and says, ‘I want you to be naked in this scene,’ that actress might feel, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to do it, my career might depend on it,’” he continued. “And then five years after that, she could look back and go, ‘I wish I hadn’t. Why am I naked in that scene? It’s unnecessary.’”

Esther appeared alongside her father in the Star Wars series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and in the 2023 film Bleeding Love, along with the actor's eldest daughter Clara, 28. McGregor shares the pair as well as two more daughters, Jamyan and Anouk, with his ex-wife Eve Mavrakis.

In his new series A Gentleman in Moscow, McGregor plays Russian aristocrat Alexander Rostov, who avoids being put to death as he is placed on house arrest during the Bolshevik Revolution. He stars opposite Winstead's Anna Urbanova, an actress who is Rostov's love interest.

The series is based on the 2016 novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towle.

McGregor and Winstead met while filming season 3 of Fargo in 2016. The couple, who were both married to other people when they met, welcomed their first child, son Laurie, in June 2021. They later wed in April of the following year.  

Last December, Winstead spoke to PEOPLE about how she and her husband "love to work together.”

"Sometimes, especially when you have kids, just to have the opportunity to get to be together and not be in separate places — the gratitude that comes with that elevates the experience even more, because you're just so grateful to get to be in the same place at the same time," she said.

"And beyond that, we just love acting together," Winstead added. "I can't imagine a more fun partner to get to do that with, so it's great."

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A Gentleman in Moscow premieres on March 29 on Paramount+. The series will later air on Showtime on March 31.