Lorraine Toussaint, the star of NBC’s upcoming drama, “The Village,” addressed the use of intimacy coaches on set during the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Tuesday, noting that she is “glad to hear” they are being utilized more now. In the past, Toussaint said that she’s had to be her “own advocate.”
“I’ve done some intimacy, revealing, late in my career where it was, um, where I felt particularly vulnerable,” the “Orange Is the New Black” star told reporters during NBC’s “Women of Drama” panel. “And I’m glad to hear there are intimacy coaches because I’ve been my own advocate. And I’ve been a bit of a Nazi about making sure that it’s a closed set. And that includes even sound.”
“If you don’t have to be on that set, go away. You can take that mic,” she added. “And I think part of the #MeToo movement, if nothing else, is empowering us to be our own advocates when there is no one else around and to really put our feet down, because I remember shooting something in one of the shows I’ve done where there was some toplessness and there was no one there but the cameraman, the DP, and the director. There doesn’t need to be anyone else on that set. And it is highly choreographed, it is highly rehearsed and then everyone has to go away.”
“The Village” premieres on NBC in March, and stars Toussaint, along with Moran Atias, Dominic Chianese, Warren Christie, Frankie Faison, Jerod Haynes, Daren Kagasoff, Michaela McManus, Grace Van Dien.
Here’s the official logline for the series: Welcome to the Village, an apartment building in Brooklyn that appears like any other from the outside but is quite unique inside. The people who reside here have built a bonded family of friends and neighbors. Sarah’s a nurse and single mom raising a creative teen; Gabe’s a young law student who got a much older and unexpected roommate; Ava must secure the future of her young, U.S.-born son when ICE comes knocking; Nick’s a veteran who’s returned from war; and the heart and soul of the building, Ron and Patricia, have captivating tales all their own. These are the hopeful, heartwarming and challenging stories of life that prove family is everything — even if it’s the one you make with the people around you.