Alison Stewart: This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The title of the movie, Baby Girl, it sets up the dynamic. The girl in this case is a 50-something woman, the CEO of a robotics company and the person who calls her that is her lover, a 20-something brash intern. Their interaction is sexy and raw and illicit and full of dominance. Who's Exactly? It's a good question. The movie stars Nicole Kidman as Romy, who seems seemingly satisfied sex life with her husband, but we soon learn that something is missing. That something might have gone unfulfilled if Romy didn't meet Samuel, a new intern. He's played by Harris Dickinson. Samuel seems to recognize something about Romy's secret desire for, well, submission. He is bold with his advances and instead of rejecting Samuel or firing him, Romy decides to go along with it, even though she seems a little afraid of him.

The intense affair with an intern puts her career and possibly her family at risk. Baby Girl was written and directed by Halina Reijn. It's playing tomorrow night at the Museum of Modern Art. It's in theaters nationwide on Christmas Day. Halina, it is really nice to meet you.

Halina Reijn: So lovely to meet you. Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Nicole Kidman has really, really done duty in working with female directors. Lulu Wang came in and talked about how she advocated for her. How do you think she's been able to lift up other women in Hollywood?

Halina Reijn: I agree with you first of all. She's doing an amazing job. She actually puts her money where her mouth is, as they say in America. I think she just looks at it in a very practical way. She actually wants to do something and how she came to me, was I made this very small Dutch movie called Instinct, which was my first movie and she just finds these movies in all the corners of the world.

She contacted me right after that and so she's just, in that sense, someone who does what she sets out to do and she actually, by attaching herself to these female directors, of course, also gets the job done because then we actually get the space and the opportunity to create our own stories.

Alison Stewart: You've worked as an actor, yes?

Halina Reijn: Yes, I used to be an actress. I was mainly a stage actress, but also did movies. I worked with Ivo Van Hove all my life and then I slowly, in the wings, started to think-- because all these characters that I was playing, I played all the iconic roles in the theater. Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, all of those but most of these women that I played, I started with Ophelia in Hamlet trying to liberate themselves, but most of them ended up dead so I always, in the wings, was thinking, like, what is happening? Why are all of my characters either killing themselves, look at Hedda Gabler, the human voice, or they get killed, Marie Stewart.

I thought, I need to create my own stories about women who are trying to liberate themselves but actually stay alive. That was just such an interesting concept to me.

Alison Stewart: As a former actor, well, as an actor, how is that helpful to you in directing this movie?

Halina Reijn: I think it's helpful in the sense that when you have been an actor yourself, you know how incredibly vulnerable and also sometimes embarrassing acting can be. Even if you have to do a comedy scene, there's all these people standing around you in North Face jacket eating pizza while you're on the floor doing weird things and putting yourself out there.

To me, I don't want to be a director who's sitting there on a high chair with a microphone, telling other people what to do and enjoying that also a little bit. No, I want to be equal. I want to collaborate. I come from the theater where that is a very normal thing, where everybody collaborates but also I grew up in an atmosphere of radical hippies in a commune, so that idea of to really work together instead of having a classic hierarchy is something that I think makes actors, especially if they're very experienced and very accomplished, they want to be a collaborator.

Of course, they come with all their talent and all of what they have seen and done in their lives and so that is how I approach it.

Alison Stewart: I'm thinking about Nicole Kidman. What does she say to you when she first reads your script?

Halina Reijn: After Instinct, when she contacted me, I worked for her a little bit because of course, she has this production company that is very impressive and I worked for her a little bit on a story that she had and she wanted me to rewrite that and that gave me a lot of confidence so that is already giving a woman an opportunity because I was writing in English.

Then after I did Bodies Bodies Bodies, my first American movie for A24, they asked me, why don't you write something yourself? And then I called Nicole and I was like, hey, listen, I'm going to just isolate myself completely. I'm going to really take on this task of creating my own story.

Alison Stewart: So you called her as a friend and said--

Halina Reijn: Yes, because we stayed in touch always and I was working for her at that time as well. I wanted to just let her know that that was what I was planning to do and she was incredibly supportive, but she always stayed in touch. Then she kept asking, "What is the title?" Then at a certain moment, I told her, well, the title is Baby Girl and immediately she was very intrigued. Then she read a very early version of it and she said, "I want to do that."

Alison Stewart: My guest is Halina Reijn. She's a writer and director of Baby Girl. All right, we meet Romy. She seems happy in her marriage, great guy making lunch for her kids, wearing an apron, stuffing little notes in her kids lunchbox. She's the CEO of a company, a robotics company, which made me laugh because she seems robotic, honestly.

Halina Reijn: Exactly.

Alison Stewart: Why did you want it to be a robotics company? Why did you want her to run an automation company?

Halina Reijn: What I'm intrigued by when we're talking about human nature and creating anything is that we, on one hand, seem to be so civilized and we think we're smart and we know everything, especially since we have all these smartphone in our hands. We have access to everything and anything, but on the other hand, we also have this side of us that is still very animalistic.

To me, everything we're doing with this movie is in those two lanes. What is the beast in this movie, and what is the civilized in this movie? We do that with the camera, where we have handheld scenes, and then we have these big overhead shots but also, in her profession, she-- Her answer to chaos, the chaos that she grew up in. She says, I was named by a guru. I grew up in communes and cults. I'm a product of the sexual revolution in that sense.

Her answer to that is the white picket fence. Everything needs to be structured and organized and I am the CEO of an automation company and of a robotics company and I just thought that was a great metaphor of someone who's suppressing something and needs to liberate herself.

Alison Stewart: So Samuel, he is very forward with her right away. Why does he feel so comfortable being so bold?

Halina Reijn: Because my movie, of course, everybody's talking about the sexuality of my movie, which I only embrace because I hope people will find it steamy and hot but how I see my movie mainly, it's a generation comedy. It's very much about two different generations and of course, since Bodies Bodies Bodies has become obsessed with Gen Z or whatever that is, because that's just a name but younger people, and their attitude towards sexuality, their attitude towards hierarchy, their attitude towards their bodies, all of that.

The words they have, the language they use. And so for me, this young man, of course, we're introducing him almost in a fairy tale style with the dog where he's--

Alison Stewart: He saves her life.

Halina Reijn: Saves her life. He's able to just calm down this beast but when he penetrates the mask of the hierarchy of the company and just says, like, "Yes, I have a question." When she says, "Does anybody have any questions?" Meaning just get out of my room. That attitude, I was inspired by a younger generation who often-- I'm Gen X and I come from a time where I had to polish the shoes of the older actress.

They are not no longer into that and again, I'm generalizing for the sake of my story and for the sake of fun, but that's how I wanted to introduce him as someone who's like, "Well, you might be the boss, but I want you to be my mentor. You're going to be my mentor."

Alison Stewart: It's so funny because on our show, I'm going to tell the tales-- There's three of us who are Gen X. Hello. You can see us and then we've got the Gen Z-ers and it's these two different worlds. We get along because Gen Z-ers are really good at starting things, of thinking of things. They're entrepreneur-ish.

Halina Reijn: They're entrepreneurs, they're creative. For me, they're a total inspiration. My whole movie, I hope that people see that in. I am so inspired by them because again, their relationship with their bodies is so different. I have learned so much of Rachel Sennett, of Amandla Stenberg, of all the actresses of Chase, who really had to teach me what modern feminism is.

I'm an old dinosaur so I wanted to really create a story about-- but also wanted to have fun with it because these two, Esme as well, played by the genius Sophie Wilde, and Esther McGregor, her oldest daughter, all of them, they don't really-- we come from a time where it's like, you have to work hard and you have to earn it and they are like, earn it? I'm going to make my own movie tomorrow. I'm going to maybe make a documentary.

They're very much at ease with just being who they are and having all these ideas about what they want to achieve and that is part of the movie story.

Alison Stewart: Why doesn't Romy just fire him.

Halina Reijn: Well, because of course, immediately, first of all, with the dog but second of all, when he shows his confidence, she's intrigued because we're meeting someone, as you said, who thinks she has to be perfect. The whole movie is about performance. It starts with a fake orgasm.

Alison Stewart: Yes, for sure.

Halina Reijn: Everything is about what is real and what is not real. And so we see this woman that thinks she has to be the perfect mother, the perfect CEO, the perfect lover, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter. And I think a lot of women-- and again, I'm generalizing for the sake of our discussion today, but a lot of women feel that need to nourish, to please, and they completely forget to think, what do I want?

Then when this young man shows up and doesn't care about any of her masks, she's perfected all these different masks because she's showing him, the mask of the CEO, and he's like, "Take your mask off." That's exactly what she's looking for. Instead of sitting her husband down and saying, "Hey, Antonio Banderas, I need to talk to you. I have these hidden fantasies. Can you please help me with that?" She doesn't do that.

It's a cautionary tale of what happens when you suppress your inner beast and your beast will come out in ways that you don't want it to come out. And it is a risk and it will hurt others and that's what's happening with Harris Dickinson arriving on the stage.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Halina Dickinson. She-- Oh, no. Sorry. Halina Reijn.

Halina Reijn: I wish.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Writer and director of Baby Girl. We'll have more after a quick break. You are listening to All of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is writer and director Halina Reijn. We're talking about her new film Baby Girl which stars Nicole Kidman. It's coming out on the 25th.

It's really interesting watching Nicole, who's a very beautiful woman, but the character is not at all happy with her appearance. She gets Botox. She goes in and out of the hot and cold chambers. Why does she not feel she's beautiful?

Halina Reijn: I wrote this completely for myself in the sense that I didn't write it for any of the actors. I was just wanting to make it very personal and wanting to express my own wrestles or struggles, however you want to call it, inner fights with aging and my own appearance. Having been an actress, I always heard I don't look peachy enough, I should soften my face. My face is not symmetrical. You can't light your face.

I thought it was very important that the pressure that is now on all women, since we all have smartphones, suddenly every young woman is in the public space and photographing and filming herself. I feel that that is an incredibly important subject, but not only with the face and the body, but also she takes the EMDR therapy, which is a form of therapy, where she almost is saying, okay, I have no blemishes. I worked on myself. I am perfect. There's no wounds in my soul. I am this perfect woman.

Again, I think a lot of women are still plagued by the idea of needing to be perfect. Men as well, by the way, in this day and age but we all think that accomplish some control over life, whereas in the end, we're all going to die, and we have to embrace aging, and we have to embrace that that is going to happen, and then enjoy the moment because there is a time limit.

That is what we see this character go through, hopefully, and we hopefully connect to that, where she can finally liberate herself from the idea of having to be perfect and just becoming her authentic self.

Alison Stewart: What did you want to achieve through the costuming?

Halina Reijn: The costume, again, my whole movie is about performing. Performance, performing. The husband is a theater director. The CEO, Romy Nicole Kidman is getting media training where she's told, vulnerability is a positive. Don't think of that as a weakness. Constantly we see people performing. Sexuality is seen almost as a performative act where they are discovering their BDSM dynamic and Harris Dickinson is telling her, get on your knees. Oh, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

They're constantly shifting between performing something and becoming reality. That is what we want to address with it and through it and the costumes are diving into that where in the beginning of the movie, everything is thought out that she's wearing. She's wearing an apron at home, she's like a Mary Poppins character, and then she has these beautiful-- She's still feminine, but she's the leader.

Slowly, she ends up in jeans and a sweater and she starts to become herself and her hair is unraveling a little bit more. With Harris, for instance, we really tried to dress him in a way where he's wearing a costume that is almost too big to express this sense of-- and cheap. He's wearing this cheap suit, he's an intern, but he's trying to ask, who am I as a man?

He's setting his first steps into society, being this intern and he's discovering himself and discovering masculinity and who am I allowed to be in a time after Me Too, and in a time of consent and what can I be? And so for him, the costume doesn't fit. I constantly wanted to play with all the ideas of what is gender, what is expected of us, and to show this woman that thinks she needs to be everything that is expected instead of everything she really, truly is.

Alison Stewart: There's a great soundtrack that goes on with this. He does a dance to a father figure at a very significant point in the film.

Halina Reijn: For the Gen X people in this room. We're all like, yes.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Tell us about putting together the soundtrack.

Halina Reijn: There's two components. There's the score that is created by Cristobal, who also did the music for White Lotus. The score is really saying to the audience, even when the stakes are incredibly high and everybody seems to blackmail everybody, the music is always communicating. This is a game. It's primal, it's sexual, it's animalistic.

He uses a lot of breathing from the real actors. He uses sounds of animals. He claims that there are real wolf sounds in his score and then there's the needle drops, how they call it. And so I always knew Father Figure-- even before I started writing, I knew Father Figure is my anthem and it has to be in there because I thought it is incredible song and it is all about power and wanting to be vulnerable.

Whether you are a guy or a girl, everybody has this inner child and everybody likes to be vulnerable at times and I think that music is so beautifully talking about that but of course, in the scene that it is in, we see Harris Dickinson dancing half naked for Nicole sitting in a chair. That is an exact mirror of a scene in 9½ Weeks where Kim Bessinger is taking her hat off Joe Cocker and Mickey Rourke is sitting in this chair.

I just want to have fun with that. I wanted to be playful with that and I thought Father Figure, talking about being a daddy, who's the daddy? Is Harris Dickinson the daddy or is Nicole Kidman the daddy? That is why I thought that was just-- and it's such a beautiful song. It's romantic, it's sensual and then we have an in excess song in the movie that is also Nicole's world and then all the other songs are all Gen Z World.

The music during the rave, for instance, that is very much Harris Dickinson's world and all the songs we play at Esther McGregor's birthday party, that's all Gen Z music or I hope that at least that it is, because I am a grandmother, but I hope that it sounds like young and fun to them. We really wanted to communicate that through the music.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk a little bit about sex in the film. Nicole Kim really has to-- she has to go there. She's got to masturbate. There's some nudity, and there's a lot of sex. What were your initial conversations with Nicole like? And did you work with an intimacy coach?

Halina Reijn: Definitely. I totally understand that my movie is a little shocking and it is edgy and it is spicy but if you really look at it, there's not a lot of actual sex acts. There's only two very small snippets of actual sex. For me, the most arousing scene is when he orders her a glass of milk in a bar and she drinks the full glass of milk and then he says, good girl and they're not even touching. I really want to--

Alison Stewart: Sensuality in the film. A lot of sensuality.

Halina Reijn: Yes, sensuality and there are moments that are taboo when she's crawling over the floor and standing in a corner and he's giving her commands. I totally understand that people are a little bit like, whoa, and enjoying that and having a fun time with it but for me, sexuality and sensuality is a story.

It's all in my mind. Two bodies just touching each other randomly, I don't find that interesting at all. That doesn't do anything for me and I think, again, for a lot of us who are not straight white men, sexuality is just something-- we need to use our imagination. We want suggestion. We want to have a whole story of foreplay before anything happens.

That is very important that we stressed that that is what the sexuality that is in my movie. Then, yes, I think preparation is key. I hated to come on a set when I was an actress where it was like, well, just do something and then you could feel the enjoyment of people who were in charge because they felt like you had to search for something and I don't like that so I come fully prepared.

There's a whole choreography. Everything is blocked out and then within that very structured environment, the actors can be totally free and really react to each other and be dangerous in the moment. We need intimacy coordinators just as bad as we need stunt coordinators. If you do a fight, you don't want to really hurt each other. If you do a sex scene, you really want to keep it safe and you want to keep it very practical.

If you use intimacy coordinators, trust me, you will get better, more layered, more complex, and more authentic sex scenes.

Alison Stewart: It's been interesting. You said twice that people have really honed in on the sex part of your movie. Why do you think that is?

Halina Reijn: Well, I think female sexuality is still shocking. It honestly is, even to ourselves. I don't even dare to talk to my girlfriends about how embarrassed I was that it takes me quite some time to have an orgasm at the hands of a man. Then when I was doing research for my movie, which is actually based on a true story, one of my friends was in a 25 year marriage and never had an orgasm with her man.

When I heard that, I was like, what? And I really reacted like that. Then later I thought, but I have my issues too. Then I start to talk about more women and do all these research and then it's just proven, it's just a fact that it takes a woman on average 18 minutes to have an orgasm on the head with the hands of a man, if she orgasms at all.

These are things that are shocking to talk about and to watch and it's just something that not everybody is ready for, I think. But my movie, again, I use sexuality as a metaphor to talk about a woman in an existential crisis, just like Hedda Gabler. And I say at the beginning of my movie, Hedda Gabler is not about desire, it's about suicide.

My movie is not about sex. My movie is about somebody who wants to destroy everything, to be born again and that's why it's called Baby Girl.

Alison Stewart: I'm talking with Halina Reijn. We're talking about her film Baby Girl. I want to talk about Esme real quick.

Halina Reijn: Yes, definitely.

Alison Stewart: She's Romy's assistant, she wants a promotion that keeps getting put off in her conversations. What did you want to achieve with Esme's character?

Halina Reijn: First of all, I wanted to create Romy in the way where I was standing in the wings and I was watching all these men play Richard III, watching all these men play Macbeth. I wanted to create a main character, a lead character that was flawed, a lead character that was dark, that was weak, that was lying to herself, lying to her husband, manipulative, also amazing and warm, and all of the things that we normally see women be in movies, but also all these weaker things.

Her bond with Esme is very controversial. Here is a young woman who's incredibly ambitious, who has all these ideas about feminism that I actually think are modern and fresh, and she's not even listening. If you look at the bar, the milk scene where Harris orders milk, something very important happens in the beginning of that, where Esme comes to the table and she has all these ideas and they dismiss her.

They're like, you're young. What are you talking about? Well, she's adorable. She's enthusiastic, stuff like that. She constantly is being, sent to the door and not listened to. Then at the end, we can't spoil anything, but when she has some information, and she wants to confront her, she is also blackmailing the main character.

Esme is blackmailing the main character, but she's blackmailing her to give more women opportunity within the company. I just thought that would be so fun. Of course, we are saying, look, Romy makes a lot of mistakes. Romy is also a dinosaur and I'm talking about myself now because I put myself in that character who is not modern enough, who's not woke enough.

She needs to be educated, she needs to learn so much. Then we have this young woman who is a very different character and who's very modern in her way of thinking, but also has her flaws, and also has her vulnerabilities. I think what makes this movie different from the '90s thrillers, of course, we're playing with the same juicy, cliché, seductive world.

We want to make it just as steamy as the men did back in the '90s, but in the end, we want to create four lead characters that are all human, that are all dark and light, that are all flawed and amazing. All of them are struggling with our themes of sexuality, of power, of control, of jealousy and all of these things.

I think there's a big thing that we sometimes overlook. Female rivalry is a consequence of patriarchy. In my own light way, I'm trying to show that in my movie, I'm trying to show these two women, that are going into a fight where you're like, why? To be picked by the man? Is that what gives you value?

I'm addressing the male gaze and I'm not saying I hate the male gaze. I'm saying this is me. I'm a product of patriarchy, and with my movie, I'm trying to slowly move towards a more female gaze, whatever that may be, a more authentic gaze. That includes everybody instead of just singling out the prototype, which is the white straight male.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Halina Reijn. She's the writer and director of Baby Girl that will be in theaters on December 25th, and I believe it's playing at MOMA tomorrow night. It was really great to meet you.

Halina Reijn: I could've talked to you for another hour, but unfortunately, we don't have time but thank you so much.

Alison Stewart: Coming up, we'll kick off this month's full bio conversation with the author of the name of this band is R.E.M. That's next, right after the news.