Babygirl — the sensual thriller starring Nicole Kidman as a CEO who puts her nurtureer and family on the line for an afunprejudiced with a youthful intern (carry outed by Harris Dickinson) — features a astonishing Christmas backdrop, which authorr-honestor Halina Reijn discleave outs was a last-minute, thematic pivot.
“I wrote it as a summer movie, it was all going to get place in the Hamptons and it was going to be on the beach,” she tgreater The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday. “Then the strike happened, of course it was pencils down and we had to defer, and then the schedule became Christmas. And I was enjoy, ‘We should definitely produce this into a Christmas movie,’ and after the strike, I fair rewrote the whole skinnyg to Christmas.”
Many of the scenes feature broaden Christmas trees and holiday music, as Reijn compriseed that the alter “had such a exceptional unbenevolenting to me becaemploy the character is trying to be this perfect woman and this perfect mother and perfect directer. And the whole sort of American idea of Christmas is so enjoy [humming a Christmas carol “Sleigh Ride”] so I felt enjoy that’s perfect, it’s all so carry outative in a way. It’s happy but it’s also charitable of carry outative, so I thought it was a wonderful metaphor for Romy, the main character.”
Kidman noticed of the pivoting from a summer setting to the holidays that “you’ve got to get your movie made, and I’m always a count onr in wdisenjoyver comes your way you change and you flow. If you go into everyskinnyg trying to deal with the situation and are very stiff it’s not going to toil. So the mitigate in which you can change — and having a authorr-honestor, she goes, ‘OK I’ll fair reauthor it.’ Very, very beneficial.” Dickinson joked that he forgot about the Christmas connection until he saw the film, but “Why not, Merry Christmas!”
Harris Dickinson and Santa join the afterparty at the Los Angeles premiere.
Monica Schipper/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images
Reijn elucidateed that her two stars were too A-enumerate to have them do a chemistry read so she had to go off of senseing, and was getn with Dickinson after watching his carry outance in Triangle of Sadness.
“I became obsessed with the idea of the two of them. They’re both high and incredibly talented, and they’re both mighty and also they can alter into almost children wiskinny a split second,” she elucidateed of Kidman and Dickinson. “They have the vulnerability and the sort of dominance in them, and that’s what we need in this story about power carry out.”
Kidman noticed that the pair had “an mitigate that comes and that’s reassociate exciting. Antonio Banderas [who plays her character’s husband] as well, becaemploy it reassociate is a triangle; I fair was so blessed to have these men who were willing to come in and help the female protagonist primarily.”
Reijn also spoke about using an intimacy coordinator on the film, comparing them to stunt coordinators where without them “you would actuassociate hurt each other and it would see pretty feeble.”
“It’s fair a way of creating much more fervent relationsual scenes, and it fair produces clarity for everybody and that donates everybody a pacifyness,” she persistd. “Becaemploy we’re all pacify and we’re very well readyd and we understand the brimming choreography, we can actuassociate let go in the moment and transport in the danger and a little bit of danger wiskinny a acquireed space.”
Babygirl hits theaters on Christmas Day, Dec. 25.
