An Intimacy Coordinator’s Perspective on This Awkward Video That Ends With Us

Leaked behind-the-scenes footage of a seemingly innocuous slow-dance scene from the filming of It ends with us has quickly become the Zapruder strip for followers of the feud between the film’s star, Blake Lively, and her director and co-star, Justin Baldoni.

Baldoni’s legal team, which provided the video to The daily mailsay it refutes several key allegations Lively made against Baldoni in a lawsuit she filed in New York in December, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign. Baldoni filed his own lawsuit last week against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, seeking at least $400 million in damages for waging their own alleged smear campaign, among other actions.

The nearly 10-minute video shot in May 2023 shows three takes of a scene from It ends with usbased on a 2016 novel by Colleen Hoover, when Lively and Baldoni’s characters, Lily and Ryle, begin their romance. A snippet of script flashing on screen at the start of the video reads: “EXT BAR – NIGHT. Lily and Ryle slow dance at the bar. Customers around them are drinking and watching sports. Completely in their own world.

The Hollywood Reporter asked Mia Schachter, an intimacy coordinator who worked on AppleTV+. Chemistry lessonsHBO Precarious and the FX American crime storyto view the images and share their thoughts.

What stands out to you as an intimacy coordinator when you watch this scene?

The first thing is he tries to kiss her, and they clearly haven’t discussed it in advance, and she keeps pulling away and clearly doesn’t want to do that.

Normally, if you had to shoot a scene where characters kiss, would you discuss it beforehand?

An intimacy coordinator would do it. But there are two main reasons why people hire an intimacy coordinator: either simulated sex or nudity. For anything that could be considered intimate, we are not always present or required. In a scene like this, it’s very common that you don’t hire an intimacy coordinator because there is no simulated sex or nudity, and there isn’t even a written kiss in the scene. We saw it in this excerpt from the script. I know there were two intimacy coordinators credited on this film, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that they wouldn’t have had an intimacy coordinator present for this scene. An intimacy coordinator would have been very clear: “We don’t kiss. That’s the kind of touch that’s on the table. Nothing else is, we’re not going to introduce anything into the scene that we haven’t discussed before.

What do you think the power dynamic is between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in this scene?

Even though she’s Blake Lively and she can say no and she won’t be fired for speaking her mind like someone else might fear, she still has to continue working with him, keep the peace and play nice. I can just see her trying to keep it light and good-natured about it and not upset him or anyone, and not waste anyone’s time. But of course, she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can see her calming him down and trying to keep a smile on her face.

In terms of hierarchy on a set, he is in charge. But it can be very murky. Obviously, she is the star, the well-known name of the project. I didn’t know who he was before this movie, but I’ve known who she is for many years and so she’s not helpless. I would say she has significant power here. But it doesn’t matter, he’s the director and she’s supposed to follow his instructions. I was sort of surprised that this was the clip his team leaked.

Baldoni’s team sees this clip as vindication.

RIGHT. And I see the opposite. When someone has (Lively’s) level of fame and recognition, they have some power, but there’s always the actor-director relationship, and the director is in charge.

​​If you were an intimacy coordinator during this scene, how would you handle this?

During preparation, we would have discussed what we wanted it to look like. I would have talked to him, as a director, what are you hoping to see? And I hope he would have said, “I would love to see them kiss.” I would love to see my character kiss her neck and brush her hair out of her face” and things like that. And then I would have a conversation with her about her comfort and what she was okay with doing. For an actor, if they know the plan in advance and aren’t caught off guard, they’re often willing to try things. The problem here was that none of this had been planned or discussed.

A scene like this seems so harmless on the page. What could go wrong?

I wouldn’t have even flagged it to discuss it with a director based on what this excerpt from the scene description says. They’re just slow dancing. There is no mention of any form of physical intimacy.

I guess that’s why she’s so surprised. It’s really improvisation. Part of what is contested is also what they say to each other. It’s not scripted dialogue that they’re having. This is a conversation between two irrelevant people, not intended to be heard by the public. Would you be willing to intervene on something like this?

If I heard what’s in this clip, none of it seems like something I should take action on. I even thought it was kind of sweet that they talked about their own real-life partners. It was a little awkward, but it wasn’t inappropriate. And it kind of reminded us that we have lives outside of that.

But if I heard someone say the things that I read that he said (in Lively’s trial), jokes about dick size and things like that, I would have to intervene. But that puts even an intimacy coordinator in a really difficult position because they’re also the director. Then it’s: who are you going to? If you’re afraid that he has an ego that will lead him to have a reaction that could stall the shoot, then you become the bad guy. I would be afraid of being fired, quite honestly.

They have this exchange where he apologizes for his beard, then she apologizes for his spray tan, then he says it smells really good. According to her lawsuit, the fact that she smelled good bothered her. Do you have any reaction to this?

This clip really shows how complex it is, because obviously saying that in character makes sense. Saying this is inappropriate, it’s not inherently wrong or inappropriate, but when there is increasing discomfort and more and more line crossings, I can see how it becomes yet another thing that was out of line .

Tell me more about the distinction between being in character and out of character. We hear about actors who stay in character for an entire shoot, even when working in craft services. Here, they speak as Blake and Justin, not as the characters they play. But they’re also caught on camera for a scene where they’re supposed to be two people falling in love. What do you think of the idea that maybe he brings an element of the character he’s supposed to play?

The title of (Daily Mail) the story with this video is “Who’s lying?” I don’t think any of them are lying. I think they are both speaking from their own experiences. They really disagree on things like professionalism, etiquette, what’s appropriate, what’s not, what it means to be an actor. There are still actors who say, “This should all be organic.” and “Oh, I’m sorry I pushed you. I was in the moment. Most, if not all, intimacy coordinators and stunt coordinators would say, ‘You just don’t do that. You don’t Don’t kiss someone if you haven’t talked about it in advance In Hollywood, in the not-so-recent past, this wasn’t unusual. That’s not to say it was okay, but we operated according to it. a different set of standards.

As for the smell comment, for me it’s less about that particular comment and whether or not it was a straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s like she has a list of times when she felt uncomfortable and pushed, and inappropriate things happened. To me, this line is something you might not even notice if you feel comfortable and safe.

Do you have anything else to say about this video?

In a scene like that, without an intimacy coordinator, I think it was his responsibility to ask Blake, “Hey, what do you think about kissing in this scene?” if that’s what he wanted to see. But he didn’t ask or even mention that this was something he wanted to film – he just went for it. She walked away, then he did it again. He definitely should have communicated that this is what he wanted to film, but he didn’t. For me, it’s pretty overwhelming, both as an actor and a director.