Babygirl director Halina Reijn has admitted her erotic thriller’s sensual milk scene was inspired by an experience in her own life.
The newly released film stars Nicole Kidman as a high-powered CEO who risks her family and career to begin a torrid love affair with a much younger intern (played by Harris Dickinson).
Early on in the movie, when Dickinson’s Samuel is courting Kidman’s Romy, the two attend after-work drinks. As Romy speaks to a group of colleagues a waiter comes by and sets a glass of milk down on the table. Confused at first, Romy then looks up and locks eyes with Samuel — realizing he ordered the drink for her — before downing the beverage.
Speaking about the scene in a recent interview with W Magazine, Reijn, 49, revealed that it had actually happened to her years ago.
Sometime in her 30s, the director and actor recalled going out for drinks after one of her stage performances. From across the bar, a famous Belgian actor, who was “way, way younger” than her sent her a glass of milk.
“I drank it, and he just walked out,” she said. “I thought, ‘How does this guy get the courage?’ I did think it was a very sensual thing to do. And I thought it was very funny.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Reijn discussed the importance of flipping the script on age-gap relationships, which typically feature a much older male with a younger female partner.
“If we see a movie where the male actor is the same age as the female actor, we find that odd. Which is insane. It should completely be normalized that the age gaps switch and that women have different relationships,” she explained. “We’re not trapped in a box anymore. We internalize the male gaze, we internalize patriarchy, and we need to free ourselves from it. It’s really hard.”
Earlier this month, 58-year-old Kidman, who’s been nominated for a Golden Globe for her role as Romy, told The Hollywood Reporter that “a lot of times women are discarded at a certain period of their career as a sexual being.”
“So, it was really beautiful to be seen in this way,” she said, adding that from the minute she read the script, “I was like, ‘Yeah, this is a voice I haven’t seen, this is a place that I haven’t been, I don’t think audiences have been.’”
Babygirl is out in U.S. theaters now. It will be released in the U.K. on January 10, 2025.
