'Babygirl's' Harris Dickinson on filming sex scenes with Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson don't hold back in their upcoming erotic thriller Babygirl.

How could they?

In the film, written and directed by Halina Reijn, Kidman plays the CEO of a technology company who has a very perverted affair with a much younger intern, played by Dickinson. Kidman won the best actress award at the Venice International Film Festival in August for her work in the film A24.

Of course, when it came to the most explicit and naughty scenes in the film, an intimacy coordinator, Lizzie Talbot, helped them both. “We talked to the intimacy coordinator about it, and then Nicole and I kind of did our own thing after determining what we were both comfortable with,” Dickinson told me at a “Babygirl” screening at the Kino Hotel in London on Friday West Hollywood. “The intimacy coordinator says, 'What are you comfortable with, what do you want as a director, what do you want to execute from that vision?' They enable that and do it very carefully without interrupting the actual scene.”

The evening after the Academy Museum Gala screening, I asked Kidman what challenged her most about the film. She laughed, “The whole thing,” but then added, “Actually doing justice and trying to be open and raw every day and available to explore in any way.” Because of the nature of this film, he was either completely vulnerable and unprotected, or you were protected and then the thing no longer had any connection. When I met with Helena and we talked about it, I was like, 'Just give us a safe space,' and then, 'Please don't make me look like an idiot.'”

In one scene, Dickinson is virtually naked and dancing in a hotel room to George Michael's “Father Figure.” Reijn didn't offer him any samples beforehand. “It was just me moving,” Dickinson said with a laugh. “Halina introduced the song and said, 'Just dance.' So I just had a little groove. Maybe I had drunk some whiskey beforehand. But it was embarrassing.”

Dickinson said he “pinches” himself every day about being in a movie with Kidman. “Subliminally I kept asking her, 'What was it like working with Stanley Kubrick?' I was always there and always thought about how she was this monolithic figure in the cinema.”

Kidman turned out to be anything but an aloof Hollywood star. “She is the most pleasant and warm artist to work with,” Dickinson said. “She sets the tone on set and makes it so easy to be vulnerable and funny because she is so brave. He's so brave and she does things and you're like, “What the hell is that?” You can't even think about it.

“And she just has this innate sense of playfulness,” he continued. “And when you have that on set, everything is so easy.”