‘Babygirl’ director Halina Reijn on Intimacy Coordinators, Age Gaps & That Milk Scene

One of the most memorable scenes in the film maker Halina Reijns Baby girlan erotic thriller with BDSM undertones, involves no touching at all. It happens when Romy (Nicole Kidman), a polished CEO, devoted wife and devoted mother, attends her successful robot company’s holiday party at a dark Manhattan bar. She holds court with her smitten employees and locks eyes with her grumpy but charming intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who gets a waiter to bring her a tall glass of milk. Despite herself, Romy downs the drink and implicitly agrees to the terms of the psychosexual mind games that mark the couple’s May-December office affair. As he walks out into the night, Samuel whispers to her, “Good girl.”

It’s the kind of scene that feels designed to go viral, but it was actually taken from real life. Before she made her directorial debut with 2022’s horror comedy Body Body Body49-year-old Reijn was better known as an actress, especially in her native Holland, where she dominated the scene. The milk scene happened to her after one such theater performance in the 30s, when she went to a local bar to burn off her adrenaline after the show. A famous Belgian actor, “maybe much younger” than her, sent her a glass of milk from across the bar. “I drank it and he just passed out,” she says W. “I was like, ‘How does this guy get the courage?’ I thought it was a very sensual thing to do. And I thought it was a lot of fun.'”

Baby girl is full of such moments – sexy, but also humorous and more often a bit awkward. For Reijn, the Golden Globe-nominated film is very clearly about a woman “trying to free herself,” a concept she sought to explore when she realized that most of the iconic female roles she had played, like Shakespeare’s Ophelia or Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, everyone ends up dying. She aimed to write about the same timeless subjects as the masters: power, sexuality, surrender – but with a different result.

While Romy continues what appears to be an ideal life, dutifully attending her Botox appointments, engaging in wanton sex with her husband, touting her company’s PR-crafted statements and patiently raising her smart teenagers, she loses herself in her reckless relationship to Samuel, nearly destroying everything she’s worked for—and herself—in the process. “My film is a warning,” says Reijn. “What happens if you say, ‘No, I’m perfect. I have no blemishes on my soul. I’m not even getting older – I look fertile even though I’m 55’? I wanted to tell the story of a woman who suppresses the beast within – and then it awakens.”

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson make a dynamic couple. How did you cast them?

Nicole approached me about working together after seeing my first film, Instinct. She read a very early draft of Baby girl and immediately said, “I want to play that character.” She also said that she would surrender to it and not change a thing. It was important to me because I knew I was writing something controversial and, at least for me, surrounded by shame. I needed someone to be as brave as the script tries to be.

When Nicole was on board, I woke up in a panic. We had one of the best actors in the world. It is impossible to find a young man who is not only as good as her, but who can dominate her. But then I saw Harris enter Triangle of Triangles. He is so vulnerable, yet so masculine and macho. He is an ideal man because he has all these layers.

This isn’t the first film to come out this year with a significant age gap, with a female lead paired with a much younger man.

If we watch a movie where the male actor is the same age as the female actor, we find it strange. Which is insane. It should be completely normalized that age differences change and that women have different relationships. We are not trapped in a box anymore. We internalize the male gaze, we internalize the patriarchy, and we have to break free from it. It’s really hard.

You worked with Lizzy Talbot, an intimacy coordinator who used to choreograph fight scenes. For a film that deals with power dynamics in the context of sex, how did you approach those moments on set?

Because I was an actress, safety is my first priority at all times. I’ve seen many male instructors sit in a North Face jacket on a high chair while you crawl around on the floor. I’ve always felt very insecure and just shy, to be honest with you. I felt like an open wound.

You can’t fight without a stunt coordinator. Your actors will get hurt and it will look lame on camera. It’s the same with sex scenes. It’s very, very helpful to have someone who knows all the little tricks and makes everyone feel comfortable. Within the structure of a choreographed plan, the actors can let go and be completely free. Funnily enough, the days with intimacy scenes are often the clearest. There are still nerves, but everyone comes to set super prepared. I wanted those scenes to feel incredibly hot and steamy and fun, but I also wanted them to be real. Sexuality is stop-and-go. It’s never like a glamor scene from a 90s Hollywood movie. It just doesn’t work that way.

You made a really good Gen Z movie with Body Body Body. But this is a generation that is increasingly opposed to seeing sex depicted on screen. What do you think of that trend?

Since BodiesI have been obsessed with younger generations. I used to think of myself as a hardcore feminist, but when I met these young actors, I learned so much more about what it means to be equal, to have body positivity, sex positivity, kink positivity, all those things. But they all grew up with this device in hand, with access to every single thing. I totally understand this reaction of, “With a tap of my finger, I can see everything. Now I don’t want to see anything.”

I’m not afraid of what they say. I kind of agree with that. Sex is not about two bodies banging against each other. That is why Baby girl circles around it. There are only two quick glimpses of sex acts in my film. The rest – it can be shocking! I also find it shocking to stand in a corner or eat this candy out of my hand. But it’s about the story, the imagination.

However, it is important for young people to continue to shine a light on sexuality and all things primal. There is a danger in saying, “It’s gross. I don’t want to smell anything. I don’t want any bodily fluids.” We survive on human contact. The more we sit on our devices, the more depression, the more suicide. We have a task as a society to keep connecting with each other, physically and mentally.

Baby girl is in US theaters on Christmas Day.