Pedro Almodóvar and Halina Reijn on Making Movies About Death and Sex in the #MeToo Era
variety.comPedro Almodóvar and Halina Reijn have a lot in common. They’re linked by Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play “The Human Voice,” which Almodóvar adapted into a short film (starring Tilda Swinton) as his first English-language production, while actor-turned-director Reijn starred in a touring production of the solo show.
This year, the Spanish auteur and the Dutch filmmaker worked outside their native languages to make movies about transgressive topics: Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” intertwines a narrative about the intimacy of friendship (led by Swinton and Julianne Moore) with the hot-button subject of euthanasia.
Reijn’s “Babygirl” stars Nicole Kidman as a high-powered CEO grappling with suppressed sexual desires. And as they made these movies about sex and death, they found themselves moved to tears on set. “Sometimes I cry — can you believe it?
There was one moment when I had to hide myself in the restroom,” Almodóvar tells Reijn, who does believe it, since she welled up on the set of her film too. “I would not show it, of course, but I would be behind the monitor …” Reijn replies, covering her face.
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