An Intimacy Coordinator’s Take on That Awkward ‘It Ends With Us’ Video
Leaked behind-the-scenes footage of a seemingly innocuous slow-dance scene from the set of It Ends With Us is quickly becoming the Zapruder tape for followers of the feud between the movie’s star, Blake Lively, and her director and co-star, Justin Baldoni.
Baldoni’s legal team, who provided the video to The Daily Mail, say it disproves several key allegations Lively made against Baldoni in a lawsuit she filed in New York in December accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and of orchestrating a smear campaign. Baldoni filed his own complaint last week against Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds, seeking at least $400 million in damages for waging their own alleged smear campaign, amid other actions.
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The nearly 10-minute video shot in May of 2023 shows three takes of a scene from It Ends With Us, which is based on a 2016 Colleen Hoover novel, when Lively and Baldoni’s characters, Lily and Ryle, are beginning their romance. A script excerpt that flashes on screen at the start of the video reads, “EXT BAR – NIGHT. Lily and Ryle slow dance in the bar. Patrons around them drinking and watching sports. Completely in their own world.”
The Hollywood Reporter asked Mia Schachter, an intimacy coordinator who has worked on Apple TV+’s Lessons in Chemistry and FX’s American Crime Story, to watch the footage and share their thoughts.
What stands out to you as an intimacy coordinator when you watch this scene?
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.
Normally if you were going to shoot a scene where characters are kissing, would you discuss that beforehand?
An intimacy coordinator would. But there’s two main reasons why people bring on an intimacy coordinator: either simulated sex or nudity. Anything else that could be considered intimate, we’re not always present or required. In a scene like this, it’s really common that you wouldn’t bring on an intimacy coordinator because there’s no simulated sex or nudity, and there’s not even kissing written into the scene. We saw that from that script excerpt. I know that 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’re not doing any kissing. This is the kind of touch that is on the table. Nothing else is, we’re not going to bring anything into the scene that we haven’t discussed prior.”
What do you think the power dynamic is between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in this scene?
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. I can just see her trying to stay lighthearted and in good spirits about it and not upset him or anybody, and not waste anybody’s time. But of course, she is trapped between a rock and a hard place. I can see her appeasing him and trying to keep a smile on her face.
In terms of the hierarchy on a set, he is in charge. But it can be very murky. Obviously, she’s the star, the household name on the project. I didn’t know who he was until this movie, but I have known who she is for many years, and so she’s not powerless. I would say she has a significant amount of power here. But regardless, he is the director and she’s supposed to take direction from him. I was sort of surprised that this is the clip that his team leaked.
Baldoni’s team sees this clip as vindicating of him.
Right. And I see the opposite. When someone has [Lively’s] level of fame and recognition, they do have a certain amount of power, but there’s always the actor-director relationship, and the director’s in charge.
??If you were an intimacy coordinator during this scene, how would you handle this?
In prep, we would have discussed what we wanted it to look like. I would have spoken to him about, “As a director, what are you hoping to see?” And hopefully 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 OK with doing. For an actor, if they know the plan ahead of time and they’re not caught off guard, they’re often open to trying things. The problem here was that none of this was planned or discussed.
A scene like this looks so harmless on the page. What could go wrong?
I wouldn’t even have flagged it to discuss with a director based on what that excerpt says of the scene description. They’re just slow dancing. There’s not any mention of any kind of physical intimacy.
I guess that’s why she’s so taken by surprise. This is really improv. Some of what is contested is what they’re saying to each other as well. This is not scripted dialogue that they’re having. This is a conversation between two people out of character, which is not intended for the audience to hear. Would you intervene on something like that?
If I were hearing what’s in this clip, none of it stands out to me as something where I would need to intervene. I even thought it was kind of sweet that they were talking about their own real-life partners. It was kind of awkward, but it was not inappropriate. And it was sort of reminding each other, we have lives outside of this.
But if I heard someone saying the things that I read that he had said [in Lively’s lawsuit], jokes about dick size and things like that, I would have to intervene. But that even puts an intimacy coordinator in a really difficult position because he is also the director. Then it’s like, who do you go to? If you’re afraid that he has an ego that would lead him to have any kind of reaction that could stall shooting, then you become the villain. I would be afraid to be fired, quite honestly.
They have this exchange where he apologizes for his beard, and then she apologizes for her spray tan, and then he says that it actually smells good. According to her lawsuit, him saying that she smelled good bothered her. Do you have any reaction to that?
This clip really shows how complex it is, because obviously to say that in character makes sense. To say that out of character, it’s not inherently wrong or inappropriate, but when there has been mounting discomfort and mounting line crossings, I can see how that becomes yet another thing that was out of line.
Talk to me more about the distinction between being in character and out of character. We hear about actors staying in character for a whole shoot, even when they’re at craft services. Here, they’re talking as Blake and Justin, not as the characters they’re playing. But they’re also being shot by a camera for a scene where they’re supposed to be two people falling in love. What do you make of the idea of perhaps he’s bringing an element of this character that he’s supposed to be playing?
The headline of the [Daily Mail] story with that video is “Who’s Lying?”?? I don’t think either one of them is lying. I think they’re both talking from their own experience. They are really strongly disagreeing about things like professionalism, etiquette, what’s appropriate, what’s not, what it means to be an actor. There are actors still who are like, “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 kiss someone if you haven’t talked about it ahead of time.” In Hollywood, in the not too recent past, that was not out of the ordinary. That doesn’t mean that it was OK, but we were operating with a different set of standards.
In terms of the smell comment, to me, it’s less about that particular comment and whether or not it was a straw that broke the camel’s back type of situation. It’s like she’s got a running list of moments where she felt uncomfortable and pushed, and that things that were inappropriate were happening. That line to me is something that you may not even notice if you feel comfortable and safe.
Is there anything else you want 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 her or even mention that it was something he wanted to shoot — he just went for it. She pulled away, and then he did it again. He definitely should have communicated that that was what he wanted to shoot, but he didn’t. To me, that’s pretty damning, both as an actor and a director.
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