When it comes to intimacy coordinators, Emily Osment was an early adopter.
The Young Sheldon actress didn’t want one for herself, but rather for her co-star, Montana Jordan.
As they shot the show in the early part of the decade, the plot called for Jordan’s Georgie Cooper to become romantically involved with Osment’s Mandy McAllister. In real life, Jordan was 18 and Osment was 29.
Osment recently recalled her reaction in Jessica Radloff’s book, Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy, via People.
“My concern wasn’t the discomfort of making out with someone after just meeting them; I’m an actor, so that’s something I’m used to. My discomfort was that he was eighteen,” said Osment. “And that made me uncomfortable. He was a baby! A baby with a mullet.”
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Osment began her career as a child actress, first in two of the Spy Kids films and then as Lilly Truscott on Hannah Montana. That may helped her feel protective over her young co-star. (Her brother is Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment.) She said Jordan was “such a sweet kid,” and even if he was uncomfortable with the scenes she feared that “he would just eat his discomfort.”
Osment continued: “I don’t know if Montana even knew if he could ask for that.”
At the very least, she wanted her co-star to know help was available. “Like, let’s give him the option, too. Make him comfortable.”
Alex Reid — who directed many of Mandy’s episodes — supported the decision.
“She was totally right. She was a thousand percent right,” he told Radloff. “We don’t have sex scenes on the show, so it wasn’t a muscle we were used to using, and they were just kissing. But we totally dropped the ball on that.”
He added, “Obviously they worked that out, and they have a great chemistry now, but that was kind of embarrassing.”
Young Sheldon co-creator Steve Molaro said Osment “had every right” to ask for an intimacy coordinator, before adding that she was “later comfortable without one.”