Babygirl director credits intimacy coordinators with helping create film’s ‘more extreme sex scenes’

Halina Reijn says intimacy coordinator is not just for actors but also for safety of other crew

Babygirl director Halina Reijn has highlighted the importance of having intimacy coordinators on set during filming.

Babygirl follows a powerful CEO who jeopardises her career and family life by having an affair with a younger intern.

Nicole Kidman, 58, stars alongside Antonio Banderas, 64, who plays her husband, and The Iron Claw star Harris Dickinson, 28, who is cast as the employee that turns her life upside down.

In a new interview, Reijn talked about how working with veteran intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot, who worked on It Ends with Us and Bridgerton, helped create some of the “way more risky” sex scenes in the film.

“You can get more extreme sex scenes that look way more risky than when you are thinking ‘No, let the actresses find out themselves. That’s such a dated idea of what sexuality is and how to approach it. I really am against it,” she told IndieWire.

“I’m also against people who are saying, ‘No, my actors didn’t want an intimacy coordinator.’ That makes no sense. It is also for your safety as a director and for everyone. What if there is a misunderstanding? It’s just amazing to have a person like that on set. And if you are creative and talented enough of a director, you can pull it off. Trust me.

“You just have to go a little bit through your own discomfort and then you will discover a whole new world of creativity and possibilities.”

Nicole Kidman in Babygirl (Miss Gabler Productions LLC)

Intimacy coordinators help actors feel safe while performing scenes in which they are required to be nude or have close physical contact. They ensure that each actor’s boundaries are met and there’s a “closed set” for particularly intimate or challenging nude scenes.

In the wake of the Me Too campaign, several actors came forward about uncomfortable experiences performing nude on set and welcomed the presence of intimacy coordinators.

Reijn’s remarks came shortly after Anora star Mikey Madison said on the Variety series “Actors on Actors” that she had chosen not to use an intimacy coordinator in the Sean Baker film.

Madison plays a pole dancer and sex worker in Anora and was asked by interview partner Pamela Anderson if she and the rest of the cast worked with an intimacy coordinator while filming sex scenes, adding that it’s “the big thing these days”.

Madison said that she declined the offer. “The filmmakers offered me, if I wanted, an intimacy coordinator. Mark Eydelshteyn, who plays Ivan, and I decided it would be best to just keep it small. My character is a sex worker and I had seen Sean’s films and know his dedication to authenticity. I was ready for it. As an actress, I approached it as a job.”

Reijn spoke about her own experience as an actor who was uncomfortable while filming intimate scenes and wanted to avoid it in her films.

“I have been an actress, so I have experienced a lot of men sitting in high chairs with North Face jackets, eating pizzas while I was crawling around like a turtle on my back. And I hated that feeling,” she said. “I thought, ‘What the f*** are you doing in that chair?’

I would feel sometimes the enjoyment of that power, and them saying — this is all before Me Too — ‘just try something’ where there wasn’t [anything] even on paper or in the choreography, nothing. What’s so scary about that is you don’t know what the boundaries of your scene partner are… it’s incredibly traumatizing.

“I’m obsessed with intimacy coordinators. I’m in love with them, not only on set but what they can do with your writing. If you use them in the right way, they are just as useful as a stunt coordinator and just as important.

I wish I had one as an actress, but unfortunately, they were nowhere to be seen.”

Antonio Banderas and Nicole Kidman in Babygirl (Miss Gabler Productions LLC)

In October, Nicole Kidman said she sometimes had to pause shooting sex scenes for the film because it would become too intense.

“There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration. It’s like, ‘Don’t touch me,’” she told The Sun. “There were times when we were shooting where I was like, ‘I don’t want to orgasm any more. Don’t come near me. I hate doing this. I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life! I’m over it.’

“It was so present all the time for me that it was almost like a burnout.”

Kidman has been receiving rave reviews for her performance in Babygirl following the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where she was awarded Best Actress.

Writing from Venice, The Independent’s Geoffrey Macnab said of her performance: “We’ve all seen Kidman in TV dramas like The Perfect Couple and Expats, giving accomplished but slightly stiff and mannered performances. Here, she digs much deeper.”

Reijn is one of the Netherlands’ most respected stage actors, well known for her work with the controversial Ivo van Hove,” he added of the film’s director.

“She elicits Kidman’s best performance in years as the headstrong, fiercely independent business woman whose sexual submissiveness never seems like weakness. A film that could have slipped into voyeuristic prurience is instead witty, subversive and emotionally revealing.”

Halina Reijn, left, and Nicole Kidman on the set of Babygirl (Miss Gabler Productions LLC)

There has been a debate around intimacy coordinators in Hollywood for a number of years now, with stars like Ewan McGregor and Emma Thompson calling them “absolutely essential”, whereas Michael Douglas and Jennifer Aniston have expressed doubt.

Mam Smith, one of most sought-after intimacy coordinators in Hollywood who most recently worked with Zendaya on racy tennis drama Challengers, and award-winning adult filmmaker Erika Lust, who champions sex-positive porn, have called for professional recognition of the role of intimacy coordinators in key awards ceremonies like the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys.

Babygirl will be released in cinemas on 10 January 2025.