Harris Dickinson isn't afraid of feeling embarrassed
Ahead of Babygirl's long-awaited Australian release, we chat to the British actor about playing such an ambiguous character, and why he's content with not knowing what the internet thinks of him
By Amy Campbell
HARRIS DICKINSON IS typing the words ‘baby girl term’ into his Google search bar. “Doesn’t it mean ‘dainty’, though?” He asks. “Okay, it says: ‘a slang term used to describe a man who’s attractive, cute or vulnerable’.” He pauses, then nods. “Okaaaaaay.”
Despite starring in the film of the moment, which shares a title with the term of online endearment, I’m roundly shocked to discover Dickinson wasn’t aware that as of right now, he’s one of the internet’s favourite ‘baby girls’. “I didn’t know that. C’mon, Amy. This is the kind of thing no one needs to know about themself. It’s never a good thing, if I were to wake up in the morning thinking, ah, thank god I’m a ‘baby girl.”
The reality is, though, that thanks to his enigmatic performance in the horniest film of the year, Dickinson’s name now appears on lists like the one he just Googled, alongside (as he recites out loud in our interview) “Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet [and] Pedro Pascal.” Not that the 28-year-old East Londoner has emerged from obscurity to become an overnight hunk – he’s already appeared in some big flicks, The King’s Man (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022) and The Iron Claw (2023) among them. But none have thrust him into the zeitgeist quite like the Halina Reijn-directed Babygirl.
Dickinson brings ambiguity and awkward sex appeal to his character Samuel, a green but plucky intern who embarks on an affair with the CEO of his company, a sexually repressed woman named Romy, so excellently portrayed by Nicole Kidman. (Antonio Banderas and Australian breakout star Sophie Wilde are also superb in supporting roles).
For Dickinson, connecting to Samuel posed somewhat of a challenge, given the question marks that hang above the character – we know very little about his past, nor do we understand how he ended up in New York City, living out of cheap hotels and working a second job as a cocktail waiter. His ill-fitting 1980s-style suits remain another head scratcher, given the film is set in present day New York. (Dickinson says the “shit suit” was something he felt strongly about, as a way of emphasising Samuel’s naivety and inexperience within the corporate world.)
“I struggled to understand Samuel, but I kind of liked that about the character,” observes Dickinson. “I was intrigued by the lack of answers around him, I found that to be quite liberating. Samuel felt like a young man having a bit of an identity crisis. Who, similar to Nicole’s character, is clutching at different versions of himself.”
The power dynamic between Samuel and Romy is established from the moment they have their first encounter, when, in front of his entire intern class, he asks her an abrupt question about her company’s values. “I don’t know if it’s cockiness,” Dickinson contends, when I ask about Samuel’s forthrightness, and where it comes from. “I feel like Samuel doesn’t really have an awareness, or doesn’t care about the stakes of the situation. I don’t think he’s really scared of the power dynamics, you know? I don’t think he’s at all worried about it backfiring on him if he talks to his boss in a certain way.”
Talking becomes the least of Samuel’s worries, as his affair with Romy veers into unfamiliar territory for them both. There are moments where the embarrassment felt by both characters is palpable, but none quite so much as the film’s most talked-about scene, in which Dickinson dances shirtless through a hotel room to George Michael’s 1987 sex anthem ‘Father Figure’.
“I was a little bit embarrassed,” laughs the actor, of watching the scene back for the first time. “But I think that scene [captures] a good balance of someone who’s maybe a little bit embarrassed, like, there’s some awkwardness to it. I didn’t want to do some lap dance. He’s kind of vibing to himself and he’s performing for her a little bit, but he’s also lost in the moment. He’s figuring out what he’s gonna do . . . But It’s basically just watching me flail around.”
Not only were these displays of embarrassment very authentic – in the moments where Samuel is embarrassed, Dickinson was most likely feeling the same – but it was an emotion he and Kidman were able to channel into their performances.
“It was a constant thing we spoke about with Halina, the idea that embarrassment is often the way to unlock the comedy, right?” says Dickinson. “And to acknowledge that embarrassment was a mechanism for us as actors to be able to find a way into the truth, and really laugh at ourselves.
“They’re two people that have never done these things before. So the embarrassment and the humour that you see is so important to show, because it’s also not always the done thing with sex scenes. We normally get a relatively polished version of a sex scene or a romanticised idea of what something’s like. And I think that it’s always more interesting to show a nuanced or funny, embarrassing encounter.”
Hours before Dickinson and I chat, the 2025 Oscar nominations are announced. Kidman isn’t nominated for Best Lead Actress, a snub so resounding it makes you wonder whether the Academy is allergic to sex.
“She should have been nominated,” says Dickinson. “I think her performance is so deserving of it. There’s also some amazing performances that have been recognised . . . you can’t really control it. You’ve just got to be happy to have been in the conversation.”
Babygirl hasn’t just been in the conversation. It is the conversation. And not every film that’s been nominated for an Oscar can lay claim to that.
Babygirl is in Australian cinemas on Thursday, January 30.
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