An intimacy coordinator who regularly works on Hollywood movie sets has commented on the behind-the-scenes footage released by The Daily Mail of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s dance scene in It Ends With Us.
The video was leaked by Baldoni’s team who used it to claim there was an amicable relationship between he and Lively. However, Lively’s attorney is now using it to support the claims of sexual harassment by Baldoni on set.
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The intimacy coordinator was on many sets
The intimacy coordinator who commented on the clip, Mia Schachter, was not involved on the set of It Ends With Us but has worked on well known movie and TV show sets such as those of Lessons in Chemistry, American Crime Story, and Insecure.
She explained the issue
Schachter spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, explaining what the issue was in the nearly ten-minutes-long video.
She said, “The first thing is that he is trying to kiss her, and they clearly haven’t discussed that ahead of time, and she keeps pulling away and clearly doesn’t want to do that.”
There is no kissing mentioned in the script
There is no mention of kissing within the script for the scene which the two actors appear to be filming.
It is described in the script as “Lily and Ryle slow dance in the bar. Patrons around them drinking and watching sports. Completely in their own world.”
Baldoni went for a kiss anyway
Although there was no plan to kiss and it wasn’t written in the script, Baldoni, “just went for it. She pulled away, and then he did it again,” explained Schachter.
She said that Baldoni’s failure to communicate prior to rolling is “pretty damning, both as an actor and director.”
She said there was miscommunication
The intimacy coordinator said that there was most likely miscommunication between the actors as to what the scene should have looked like, so she doesn’t think either of them is lying about their perspectives of what happened that day.
“I think they’re both talking from their own experience,” she said.
There was a disagreement
“They are really strongly disagreeing about things like professionalism, etiquette, what’s appropriate, what’s not, what it means to be an actor,” Schachter added on the miscommunication between Lively and Baldoni.
She explained that the presence of an intimacy coordinator isn’t usually expected in a scene like that.
A coordinator would’ve made things different
There wasn’t an intimacy coordinator on set during that scene because there was no physical intimacy written in the script.
If there were, Schachter assured the coordinator would have made sure there was no miscommunication, explaining that nothing would be brought into the scene that wasn’t “discussed prior”.
She was asked about power
The intimacy coordinator was asked about the power imbalance between Lively and Baldoni, to which she explained that although Lively is a bigger name in Hollywood, she still had to take directions from Baldoni.
Schachter said you could see Lively “appeasing him and trying to keep a smile on her face.”
Schachter explained further
“Even though she’s Blake Lively and can say no and isn’t going to be fired for speaking her mind the way that somebody else might fear, she still has to keep working with him and keep the peace and play nice,” the intimacy coordinator pointed out.
The two have been in a legal battle
Lively and Baldoni have been in a lawsuit battle since the beginning of the month, with Baldoni’s legal team leaking the behind-the-scenes footage to claim it as evidence that the two are friendly.
Lively’s team stated that the video shows she was “trying to deflect the unwanted touching.” Schachter also believes Lively was “trying to stay lighthearted” while uncomfortable.
