Michaela Coel Dedicates Best Actress Award To Intimacy Co-ordinator

Tonight's TV BAFTAs was a huge night for Michaela Coel and I May Destroy You. The show not only won best mini series, but its lead actress and creator Michaela was also awarded best actress, for her role as writer Arabella, in the powerful series which explores themes of consent and sexual assault.

During her second acceptance speech of the night, Michaela paid tribute to the show's intimacy director, Ita O'Brien - and said that her work is pivotal to making actors feel safe on set. 'I want to dedicate this award to the director of intimacy, Ita O'Brien,' she said. 'Thank you for your existence in our industry, for making the space safe for creating physical, emotional, and professional boundaries so that we can make work about exploitation, loss of respect, about abuse of power without being exploited or abused in the process.'

Michaela continued, saying that she has worked on sets where this has not been present - and that the difference has been devastating. 'I know what it's like to shoot without an intimacy director, the messy embarrassing feeling for the crew.,' she said. 'The internal devastation for the actor. [Ita] Your direction was essential to my show. And I believe essential for every production company that wants to make work exploring themes of consent.'

Ita is a big name in the industry, and has worked on sex scenes in Normal People and Sex Education. Speaking to theNew Statesman about working with Michaela on I May Destroy You, she said, 'She was phenomenal. Watching her ability to swap hats – her centredness and humility, her ordinariness and inclusiveness, while also doing this ground-breaking intimate content, exposing assaults in so many places and confronting them, and the period sex, I was going, "Yes! Thank you!"'

Tonight is not the first time Michaela has spoken out about consent in the industry. In April, the actress released a statement after the sexual misconduct allegations against actor Noel Clarke were revealed in the [Guardian {href='https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/apr/29/actor-noel-clarke-accused-of-groping-harassment-and-bullying-by-20-women' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'}{ =nofollow}Clarke denies all allegations but one). 'I am here to [give] great support for the 20 brave women who have come forward; those who have shared their identities with us, but also those who have preferred to use an alias; the mental hurdles a black woman must overcome to do such a thing as reveal their identity within a narrative of rape abuse or bullying at the hands of someone within our own community can sometimes be too much,' she wrote on Twitter.

'Speaking out about these incidents takes a lot of strength because some call them "grey areas,"" she continued. 'These are however far from grey. These behaviours are unprofessional, violent and can destroy a person’s perception of themselves, their place in the world and their career irreparably. I have shared to show solidarity, to express my belief in them and to stand with them in their indignation.'

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