A Hollywood intimacy coordinator weighed in on the leaked behind-the-scenes footage from “It Ends With Us,” backing up Blake Lively’s claims that Justin Baldoni made her “uncomfortable.”
In December 2024, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment on set, pointing to a specific slow-dance scene in which he was allegedly “behaving inappropriately.”
Baldoni, 41, refuted the “Gossip Girl” star’s allegations by releasing 10 minutes of raw video, which he claimed proved he was “clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism.”
However, intimacy coordinator Mia Schachter — who did not work on “It Ends With Us” — told the Hollywood Reporter Thursday that she “sees the opposite.”
Schachter claimed the “Five Feet Apart” director was clearly adding more intimacy to the scene than originally “planned or discussed.”
“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,” Schachter told the outlet.
At the start of the video, a script excerpt flashed across the screen that read, “EXT BAR – NIGHT. Lily and Ryle slow dance in the bar. Patrons around them drinking and watching sports. Completely in their own world.”
Schachter noted that “there’s not even kissing written into the scene,” so an intimacy coordinator likely wasn’t asked to step in because there’s no “mention of any kind of physical intimacy.”
“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,” she said.
“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.’”
Schachter said that if Baldoni wanted to add more intimacy, then it should have been discussed beforehand so no one “was caught off guard” by the improvisation.
“I think it was his responsibility to ask Blake, ‘Hey, what do you think about kissing in this scene?’” she explained. “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,” she continued. “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.”
Without a professional present, Schachter said the actor-director “power dynamic” potentially prohibited Lively, 37, from speaking up — despite her being the “star” of the film.
“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,” she told the outlet.
“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,” she continued. “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.”
Since there was no audio for the scene, Lively and Baldoni chatted out of character, adding another level of complexity.
In the “Jane The Virgin” star’s $400 million defamation and extortion lawsuit against Lively, he alleged that she “continued to break character” during their slow dance scene and started to “speak as herself rather than as Lily, which was extremely confusing for Baldoni.”
However, she alleged that he began speaking “out of character as himself,” crossing boundaries by telling her she smelled “so good.”
Schachter said the pair’s decision to talk out of character “shows how complex” the situation is.
The intimacy coordinator found the small talk — which included their respective spouses, Ryan Reynolds and Emily Baldoni — “sweet” and a bit “awkward” but “not inappropriate.”
“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,” she said.
The industry insider, who has worked on Apple TV+’s “Lessons in Chemistry” and HBO’s “Insecure,” said she was “surprised” Justin’s team chose to release that particular clip — but she doesn’t “think either one of them is lying.”
“I think they’re both talking from their own experience,” she said. “They are really strongly disagreeing about things like professionalism, etiquette, what’s appropriate, what’s not, what it means to be an actor.”
She continued, “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.”
While Baldoni’s team argues that the clips prove his innocence, Lively’s team believes the “damning” evidence “corroborates” their client’s claims.
“The video shows Mr. Baldoni repeatedly leaning in toward Ms. Lively, attempting to kiss her, kissing her forehead, rubbing his face and mouth against her neck, flicking her lip with his thumb, caressing her, telling her how good she smells, and talking with her out of character,” they said in a statement earlier this week.
“Every moment of this was improvised by Mr. Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present.”
They claimed the actress tried “repeatedly asking” for their characters to “just talk,” using “levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching.”
Reps for Baldoni and Lively did not immediately return our request for comment.
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