Harris Dickinson says he and Nicole Kidman freestyled their sex scenes in their erotic new movie, “Babygirl.”
“We’d have a discussion with the intimacy coordinator and then Nicole and I kind of did our own thing with it once we set the parameters of what we were both comfortable with,” Dickinson, 28, recently told Variety.
“The intimacy coordinator is saying, ‘What are you comfortable with, what do you want as a director, what are you comfortable doing from that vision?’ They’re facilitating that and doing it very delicately without interrupting the actual scene.”
“Babygirl” follows a powerful CEO, Romy (Kidman), who begins an affair with a young intern, Samuel (Dickinson). Romy’s husband (Antonio Banderas) knows nothing about her dangerous liaison, which ends up putting her career and her family life at risk.
The movie proved daunting for Kidman, 57. When asked what she considered to be the most challenging part about making the film, Kidman told Variety, “The whole thing.”
“Actually doing it justice and trying to be open and raw and available each day in every which way to explore,” she qualified.
“Because the nature of that film, it was either going to be completely vulnerable and exposed, or you were going to be protected, and then the thing wouldn’t connect. When I met with [Director Halina Reijn], and we talked through it, I was just like, ‘Just give us a safe space,’ and then, ‘Please don’t make me look like a fool.’”
Kidman has also shared how filming took a toll on her physically. She recently revealed that she had to pause filming at times because of how taxing it was faking orgasms in multiple sex scenes with Banderas, 64, and Dickinson.
“There were times when we were shooting where I was like, ‘I don’t want to orgasm any more,’” Kidman said, according to The Sun.
“I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life!” she quipped.
“It was so present all the time for me that it was almost like a burnout,” Kidman added.
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Discussing “Babygirl” with Vanity Fair in August, Kidman said acting in the project left her feeling “ragged.”
“At some point I was like, ‘I don’t want to be touched,’” she recalled. “I don’t want to do this anymore, but at the same time I was compelled to do it. [Director] Halina [Reijn] would hold me and I would hold her, because it was just very confronting to me.”
She still felt that way months after filming. “It’s like, Golly, I’m doing this, and it’s actually now going to be seen by the world. That’s a very weird feeling,” she said. “This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.”
She continued, “I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being. I had to go in and go out, like, I need to put my protection back on. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do?”
“Babygirl” arrives in theaters on December 25.