Halina Reijn, the writer and director of the erotic thriller Babygirl, recently revealed that one of the film’s most talked-about scenes was inspired by a personal experience from her own life.
In an interview with IndieWire, Reijn explained the backstory behind the scene where Samuel (played by Harris Dickinson) sends a glass of milk to his boss, Romy (Nicole Kidman), at a bar, and orders her to drink it. Reijn shared that the milk is an archetype, a symbol representing the animalistic sides of human nature. She believes that the most erotic moments often stem from the psychological dynamics and the power of suggestion, rather than from explicit physical acts.
The inspiration for this moment came from a night in Belgium, where Reijn had just finished a successful stage performance. Feeling celebratory, she decided to go to a bar while her colleagues opted to go to bed. At the bar, a younger Belgian actor—whom she described as famous but chose not to name—sent her a glass of milk. Reijn found the act itself strikingly bold and daring, and she felt compelled to drink it in response. “I thought it was an incredible, hot thing to do, and so courageous, and so I wanted to reward him by drinking the whole thing, and I did,” she recalled.
However, the moment wasn’t entirely pleasant. Reijn admitted that the milk, which was cow’s milk, made her feel a little nauseous, but she still found the gesture unforgettable and exciting.
For Reijn, the scene represents her belief that eroticism is more about psychological tension and suggestion than about physical intimacy. She reflected on how this experience from her own life influenced the themes she wanted to explore in Babygirl. In fact, she described the moment with the glass of milk as one of the most arousing experiences she had, even though there was no physical contact involved.
She explained that true eroticism, in her view, is about the mind—about what’s suggested, what’s imagined, rather than what’s physically enacted. According to Reijn, real sex acts on screen can often be quite boring, which is why she chose to include only two brief moments of explicit physical intimacy in Babygirl.