Harris Dickinson on Babygirl, Nicole Kidman Meet-Cute, and “Unfiltered” Fan Comments

0:05I'm Chloe Mao and you are listening to The Run Through with Vogue. Today, I am so excited to share a very special interview with you all just in time for the holidays. My beloved colleague Marlee Marius, Features Editor at Vogue, and I had the pleasure, truly a pleasure, of speaking with the incredibly talented Harris Dickinson about his new film Baby Girl, which is coming out on Christmas Day. Though I wouldn't say it's exactly the movie you see with the whole family, but you should definitely see it no matter what. The film is about a high-powered CEO played by Nicole Kidman who has an affair with a young intern named Samuel played by Harris.

0:48What I really liked about the movie was that it could have easily slid into cliche and played to these tropes of sexual power dynamics. And instead, it was really this nuanced and quite layered exploration of desire and why people feel the way they do and what people need and how they interact with each other. And I thought Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson both were so excellent in this movie. And I hope everyone enjoys this conversation as much as we did because we were really cavalling and swooning after.

1:35Harris, we are so excited to have you here. And it's really—this movie has been a real talk of the town in our office. And starting with people who saw it at Ken, and then over the past few months, it's been sort of trickling in. So we feel very hashtag blessed to be speaking about it with you today. Marley and I were both excited to find out that— Was it Nicole who attributed your first meeting with her to Anna, Winter? Yeah, it was at the Met Gala. So set the scene. That's a very chic meet-cute. Yeah. It was two years ago, I think. So, yeah. I didn't really know anyone there yet. Everyone arrives slowly, slowly, as you know, and then there's different arrival times, whatever.

2:19And I bumped into Margaret Qualey, who I know a little bit, but I was talking to her, and then I knew that I was doing the film with Nicole, and I saw Nicole sat with Keith over across the way and I thought, well, I probably should say hello because we're about to do something together. You'd never met, but you knew you were doing it together. We'd never met, but I'd been cast and I knew she was doing it. And I thought, well, I could sort of pretend I haven't seen her. As I often do. As is sometimes easier. A little unsee moment, you know what I mean? Just to make things easier. But I was nervous.

2:55So I got, Margaret saw me looking and she was like, who are you looking at? I said, well, Nicole's over there. She said, come on, I'll take you over because I know her. So she walked me over and introduced me and it was fine. She was lovely. How was Keith? He was lovely, as expected. Yeah, sang a song and he did not, just to correct. So he did not do that. Speaking of Nicole, she also seemed to be quite endeared by your cat. She said that when you guys were first speaking on like a Zoom call, kind of early in the process, she saw your cat like walk across the background of the Zoom and she was like, okay, this guy is going to be perfect for Samuel.

3:34Do you know what I'm talking about? If this cat knew that Nicole Kidman knew its name, it would be even more arrogant than it is. What's the cat's name? Misty. I tried to call him Terry, Terrence. Terry for short, Terrence. and my partner didn't want to go with that. So Misty ended up being his name. But he's very sweet. He's a good lad. He's cultured. Have you ever seen that thing of Willem Dafoe talking? He's like, he loves classical music. He's into ballet and it's like me talking about my cat. You're like, what's his name at called Tiffany Breddy Joe? What's his name? Misty loves Wagner. Misty loves Wagner.

4:17He's into the arts, you know. Your default's not bad, I have to say. No, I was doing a Zoom, and whenever I do Zooms, you can't control him. He just potters around in the foreground or the background and assaults me. He's really violent. I've got scars all over my hands from him, but, you know, we come back to them. We love them. Yeah, no, she's an animal person as well, so I think that was maybe what she meant. She's got dogs and stuff. I did think that it's one of the more dramatic first reveals of a character I think I've seen in a while was you taming the dog. Are you a dog healer? Pocket full of sausages.

5:01Yeah, that dog was a tricky, amazing dog, but it was designed, not designed, it was trained to like, often these dogs in film and TV, they're trained to like, I guess like safely attack and stuff. So he had so much energy. And so it was really hard getting the dog to like just be calm. And there was times where I just was just feeding it sausage after sausage to try and like calm it down. But it was a lovely dog. And then there was a scene in the street where Nicole gets, you know, the dog jumps onto Nicole. The dog runs towards her. And I just looked over and Nicole was just laying in the middle of the street in the middle of Manhattan.

5:42And everyone was walking past. Oh, my God. What is going on? I mean, she's on the map. But I'm like, what are we doing as a job? Like, what is happening? She's also talked about how she likes being on the floor. Do you like being on the floor? I don't mind being on the floor. Okay. I don't mind it. Yeah, why not? Do you? Honestly, yes. Yeah. I'd love to be on the floor of a conference room. What do you like about it? It's, man, well, I do like to recline. I do like to recline. You can't recline on the floor. I do like to just like recline asleep. Maybe there's some kind of creative energy. You're grounded, quite literally.

6:16Yeah. You know what I mean? No, it's just humbling, isn't it? I want to know what Helena told you about her vision for Samuel because I have to say this morning I listened to your interview with Andrew Garfield, which was very charming, but also helpful to hear about your vision for Samuel and not having it fit into different tropes or cliches of what this could have been. How did, when you first got the call describing who this character was, because it came out of her mind, what was the most important thing for her in describing Samuel to you? I think she spoke, if I remember, quite a lot about his struggle with his own identity and masculinity.

6:55The idea that there was this young guy coming up against a version of himself that he was still grappling to understand, I think, which is, you know, important in today's climate where like young people, you know, young men, but young people as well are just, anyone is so easily strayed, influenced and potentially controlled by the internet and pop culture and film, whatever. So, and there's confusing, there's different narratives and confusing ideals that we come up against. So I think that was something that was very important for him. And also his directness was always in the script, his like honesty with Romy, Nicole's character, because, you know, you're seeing this character, the first part of the film in Romy and Nicole's character, that she's a high-powered CEO, she's holding it together with a sort of control, great control, and there's everyone around her is revering her, respecting her.

8:00And Samuel comes in and he just pokes through it and sees what happens. And he watches her, studies her, and then he dares to challenge her. and once he challenges her he understands that it's ultimately what you know interests her it turns her on it kind of makes her tick and so that was a big part of it and yet it's not like he's sort of like this swaggering like he-man like there's like a politeness to him there's a kind of halting quality to the way that he's like sort of confident and strident so like a very interesting sort of line that you're walking between being like respectful acknowledging that what he's doing is not quite okay, but then also kind of going for it anyway.

8:42Yeah. Was that something that sort of developed just sort of as you were working, that sort of... Well, I think it was obvious that we couldn't just have this guy that was like uber cool and uber like dominating. It's kind of been done and it's a little uninteresting. It's a little more unrelatable. So a big thing Helena spoke about, which is clear when you watch the film, and I think that's some of the best parts of it, is when you see the awkwardness of what sex and relationships and even just normal interaction can be with like two people fumbling their way through like roles that we play. So I really was interested in that.

9:23And I think that when you watch it, you see those moments of embarrassment that are kind of real, you know, because it is a little embarrassing to do those things. and we were able to lean into it and laugh and you kind of see us coming in and out of the performative element of that.

9:50The run-through will be back in just a moment.

10:04Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, senior awards correspondent at Vanity Fair and co-host of Little Gold Men. Oscar season is upon us. Little Gold Men takes you behind the scenes of the race for the biggest prize in Hollywood. There's a hundred wrestlers in the room, but only one can be Oscar nominated. Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts.

11:01jazz hand number. I should have, now I look back, I should have done a big... Busby Berkeley. Yeah. I was like, there's something going on here, it's not going to move. No, I got sent the song a long time before and it was, it kind of said in the script, I can't remember what it said, but it, you know, he moved through the space and then Romy was sat down and I thought, God, well, this is like, this can't be like a lap dance. This is, you know, that's really embarrassing. I can't. So I thought this has kind of got to be for himself, but also for her and I may have had a few drinks for that. It seems like that would have come in handy.

11:38Yeah. It's very bidey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was speaking about this earlier, but more embarrassing because of the crew. Like you spend so long with these people that you see every day and it's like, hey, how you doing? How's your weekend? What are you having for dinner? You know, like a normal, like banal chat. And then it's like the boom ops and the grips and it's like all of a sudden you've got your top off and you're like jiving around. You know, you're like, oh, God. You catch eye contact with them and you're like, sorry about that. You know, it's like, oh, God. I do feel like people are talking about this movie as sort of bringing back sexy scenes in a way that we haven't seen for a while because there was sort of a post-MeToo fear of having sexy movies and people seem thrilled for the return of a quite emotional, I mean, it's not, I thought it was interesting that you said that it's a bit diminutive to call it an erotic thriller.

12:34It's both erotic and a thriller, but it's not just that. And it is very emotional, and you see such arcs of both characters. But I wonder what it's been like navigating responses from people about this. I thought it was interesting that Nicole said she feels like a sex therapist because people just keep spilling their souls to her in response to seeing the movie. Is your family seeing this over Christmas? My family saw it. My mom's very open-minded. My mom saw it in London. She loved it. She said she wore a turtleneck in case she needed to color her eyes. Very thoughtful. Yeah, yeah. Bless her.

13:12So she loved it, though. She was like, oh, no, absolutely brilliant. She was really fond of it. And same with my sister, yeah. But, you know, people's responses have been interesting. And I think it's been a real range of thought-provoking to filthy, to be honest with you. People are unafraid to say exactly what they think, particularly when they've just seen it. We've been doing these screenings and 80-year-old women have been saying some very funny stuff to me. Give us an example. I mean, is this like, can I be explicit? No, please. It's not that explicit, but she came out and one of them, she grabbed me and straight away she said, well, I can't wait to get home and use that vibrator.

14:01You're liberating women. I said, all right, well, yeah, go and do that. That's good. And then another one said to me, well, honey, I've got no one to sleep with tonight. And she tickled me and I thought, well, there's a room full of people. Go and mingle. The night is young. The night is young, yeah. Just maybe look elsewhere. Oh, my God. Yeah. Like straight to the source. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if the shoe was on the other foot is all I'll say. No, I mean, it's interesting. It's definitely igniting liberation in people, which is good. You know, at the end of the day, there's a positive conversation being sparked and dialogue around it is positive.

14:41So we like it, yeah. You have worked with so many fantastic directors And I wonder if different directors are like different parental figures. You learn different things from each person. Is it harder to become trusting with different people? Is that process different? I think it changes. I always have a process of figuring out trust with someone. You know, it's normal, isn't it? Like building trust with someone. But with directors, you kind of have to do it and you have to do it quick. Otherwise, your performance suffers, I think. because if you're scared of stuff, if you're worrying about how you're going to be looked after, at the end of the day, you just want to be looked after in the right way and step into safe hands.

15:30And I've been lucky. All of the people I've been lucky enough to work with, you know, Sean Durkin, Eliza Hittman, you know, Ruben Osland and Joanna Hogg. I've just been really fortunate. It's always a process and it always takes me a minute. I feel like I'm probably not the easiest person to like, you know, I don't just give it straight away. I just imagine sort of day one of a movie like this, was there any sort of trust exercise to begin with or some sort of way that you got to know each other like you, Nicole and Alina type of thing? And like her being an actor, did that change the dynamic?

16:05100%. Yeah. I'll answer the exercise thing first. We didn't do a lot of that. We had a small, we had that one-day rehearsal, and it was just a very brief period where Nicole, Helena, and I sat down and spoke and looked through all the scenes. And then we were lucky in the sense that me and Nicole bonded really quickly. We felt very comfortable with each other very soon, so that was like a tick off the list. And then I think we just got into it and we just did it. But Helena, yeah, as an actor, I think it changes what you expect from yourself because she's, even with the crew, she's like showing us what she imagines it to be.

16:45And she's like throwing herself around the floor, like, you know, no shame, just showing us exactly what she thinks might be an interesting choreography. And I think everyone kind of got on board with that, with that like full in mentality. And even the crew were just like, okay, this is someone who we should get behind and like go full speed with. And same with Nicole. Nicole has got this mad like playfulness as a performer. She's so bold with stuff. She's not scared to try stuff. And then you think, oh, I can try stuff as well. What's an example of something that she tried that made you feel like you could be free to do something kooky or goofy?

17:27Okay, the rave, for example. the rave she's there like i mean a lot of that was scripted but the rave she's she just threw herself into it and she was like grabbing people and kissing them and stuff i was like well i can't this doesn't mean i can do that but you know and there's scenes like for example the cheap motel it's like seven page scenes you know so we're having to navigate between so many different tones and, you know, on the floor and wrestling. And it's like, it's just bonkers. Wow. Yeah.

18:04You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from, whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo, Liz Cheney, or the godfather of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton, or some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at the New Yorker. So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

18:33You've built up quite a body of work. I think your breakout was, what, sort of seven, eight years ago with a lot of the Hittman's beach rats. What was your kind of life like? I know that you self-taped for that role. What was your life like at that moment? I know you were doing sort of odd jobs. What was sort of on your mind as you were preparing to put yourself out there in that way? What did you want from a career at that point? I like to think, you know, I love the idea of me going, yeah, I knew exactly what kind of things I wanted to do. But the truth is I just wanted to work. I just wanted to do anything.

19:10I was working in a hotel. I'd done some theater. And I'd done some smaller, like unpaid stuff. And the irony of that situation is that I spent six, seven weeks in LA doing like pilot season and I saved up from my hotel job and I went to pilot season and I didn't get a thing and I auditioned every day, which is fine. It's very normal. I auditioned every day and didn't get anything. Seven weeks went by. I went back to the hotel. I saved up for another seven, eight months and I went back and did it again. and again didn't get anything got close to a few things went home went begged for my job back at the hotel and then um i got a self-tape through in my home in east london and did it in my like childhood bedroom and it ended up being like the thing that ultimately kind of launched my career you know it won sundance and people were so kind about that and and my involvement in it just almost you know enabled me to keep on working but yeah I just really wanted to work I just wanted to do stuff and and learn you know I hadn't been to drama school so for me being on set was like my education in some way as well so have you ever been an intern yeah I've I've been a runner a lot on I used to be a runner on music videos and and so I was a runner one of the most memorable ones I was a runner at Notting Hill Carnival for a rapper.

20:39Oh, wow. Yeah, that was crazy, like running around with this rapper and like a really small crew. And then for the... When was that? That was maybe 10 years ago. I was like 16, 17. Oh, goodness. That was carnage. But I also tried to... I think I was here in this building doing something for Ironclaw with Zach and Jeremy. And at the time I was preparing for Baby Girl and I'd never worked in an office. I didn't know that environment very well, so I got lost and just potted around for a bit and was bothering people in the office. Oh, my God. Yeah, and asking questions. To, like, find out what it was like to, like, push papers.

21:17I don't know. That would be a great TikTok. It's such an active thing to do. So I took six months off and worked in an office. It's like, okay, well done. You went to a mailroom. With staplers. You made a cup of tea. No, but I just wanted to understand the office environment. I'd never been. And I'd only done retail, hospitality, other stuff. I was not an office boy. What did you learn? So many things. Wealth of knowledge. I was like, I've learned nothing at all. We have a dear British colleague who writes about music a lot for us. And he reminded us before this interview that he recently wrote a wonderful piece about your partner and that you had directed one of her videos.

22:01And I wonder if there's any overlap. And he was like, they are the most important British couple for me right now and for all of young England. I was like, OK. That's very sweet. Love that for Liam. Oh, it's Liam. But I wonder, do you sort of have rules with each other? We're not talking about this, but we're both public facing. I'm directing your music video, so we are working together, but we are going to keep certain parts of our work live separate. Well, I think it's nice because we're in different industries. You know, she's a musician and there's rarely overlap. I mean, the music video stuff is something we've been doing for a while.

22:39And then I guess it became, it was just an extension of stuff we'd already done together. But it's nice that our worlds are different. I always get very starstruck by musicians. I'm always like meeting musicians and being, you know, we went to Confidence Man the other day or I met Caroline Polacek. and I always feel like, or like Charlie X, you know, I'm always so fascinated by what they do and I'm so impressed by what my partner does. Like, it's a hard world, but I don't know. I think there's certain things you have to keep sacred, you know. You have to keep stuff between us just to keep it special, you know.

23:14I understand. What do you listen to? Like, what's your taste in music? It's cliche. Everything, I don't know. What was on your Spotify rap? Oh, yeah, what was your top artist? Should I tell you? Oh, yeah, pull it out. rather than trying. But embarrassingly, Father Figure was on there because I listened to it a lot. It's a great song. But it's awesome. No shame. Made George Michael rest. Your top songs 2024. Missing, Todd Terry, Everything But The Girl. You know that one? Nope. Am I allowed to play it? Yeah. You know this one? You get it. Yeah. You get it. Yeah. Some of these are embarrassing. what makes something embarrassing no that's not embarrassing Crush Jennifer Page I don't know Sega Bodega James Clay I've never heard any of these words before no Gangstar these seem cool to me Gunner I like a bit of rap oh Gunner okay yeah yeah yeah I like rap classical Ludovico and Audi there you go literally my top artist was Bach and I'm like that makes me seem more interesting than I am or worse I don't know no no no I'm clear as long as you don't lead for that it might seem a bit like Imagine if you asked me and as soon as without a beat, I said Bach.

24:28I mean, mine was Moana. Was it? Moana, yeah. For the little ones? That's right. And for myself. Yes, yes. Harris, I want to talk about Prada and other things. Obviously, we're a fashion podcast. I want to know, is it a chore to dress for a press tour or is there sort of fun in it? We've been talking a lot at Vogue about how everyone is method dressing these days. They're sort of dressing. Theme dressing? Theme dressing for their press tour. Any thoughts about Samuel when you're getting dressed for these readings? You guys into the theme dressing? Really depends. Yeah, it really does depend. It can go very wrong very fast.

25:07It goes on for quite a long time. Yes, yes. Well, luckily, me and my stylist, Ben Schofield, the lovely Ben, we've not done that so much because Samuel is wearing sort of regular normal baggy suits. I don't think we need to— We love his chain. His chain's nice. We do love his chain. Did you notice his little clipper thing, his little carabiner with his keys? No, dressing for press tours is not a chore. It's fun. I mean, when you've got help, it's really fun. I can't imagine having to do it on my own. I'd be a mess. But no, I love it. What are you wearing today? Today, this wasn't actually a look.

25:46I changed because I was a bit uncomfortable. But I mean, whatever, it's fine. This is just, I'm wearing Prada shoes, nice trousers, and then an Adidas top because I just wanted to. High and low. I wanted to just feel more like myself. And sometimes when I dress very smart, I don't feel like myself. So, you know what I mean? Yeah, this is good. And we're flying after, so boom, boom, boom. Where are you off to? Going back to London. Oh, good. Oh, wow. Are you done? Yeah. Oh, my God, fab. Fab. Fabby, fabby, fabby. We're going to let you go, but I just want to know what the Christmas plan is. I'm going to get back in touch with cooking.

26:26I lost that a little bit this year because I was busy. So I really just want to, like, make some nice food. What's the recipe, the holiday recipe? Well, there's a lovely ragu that I want to try again, like a short rib ragu that I did recently. That was, I say recently, last year is the last time I did it. And it was just like, yeah, chef's kiss. and then luckily I don't have to do the cooking at my family's. I've got a big family that will do it for me. So that's nice. Yeah, I can just rock up with the booze and yeah. Harris, thank you so much. What a delight. Thank you. Hope that your ragu is everything you dream it to be.

27:08Thank you guys.

27:17And that is it for the show this week. We will see you guys soon.