In her new documentary, Brooke Shields reflects on exploitation and sexual abuse in Hollywood as a child actor.
two part documentary – called Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields – uncovers some of Brooke’s early filmmaking experience, including 1978 Beautiful babywhich inspired the title.
Another movie that she portrays in the doctor is the blue LagoonWhich was released in 1980.
for reference, the blue Lagoon is highly controversial. It centers on two cousins, Emmeline and Richard, who are shipwrecked on a tropical island as infants. Much of the film focuses on their teenage years, depicting the two young characters falling in love and eventually conceiving a child.
Brooke was just 14 when the film was shot, starring as Emmeline alongside Christopher Atkins, who was four years older than she was when she played Richard.
In addition to its controversial plot, the film is considered scandalous due to scenes of child nudity – Brooke spends most of the film with just her hair covering her breasts.
talking about making the blue Lagoon In her new documentary, Brooke reflects critically on the film’s director, Randall Kleiser, who also famously directed Grease,
Brooke claims that Randall attempted to market the film around her current image as an underage sex object, seemingly experiencing a sexual awakening similar to her character’s. .
Randall is quoted as telling a newspaper in the documentary: “It’s real, she’s going from a kid to a woman during filming.”
Speaking about the experience, Brooke said in an interview that it was like he was trying to turn the film into a “reality show”: “They wanted to sell my real sexual awakening.”
“The irony was, I wasn’t in touch with any of my own sexuality,” she said.
So, as Brooke is currently promoting the documentary, she recently the drew barrymore show In which he highlighted the response to his claims.
In the interview, which airs today, Drew asked if “any of the male directors” she refers to in the documentary have reached out to her since its release.
Brooke noted that Louis Malle and Franco Zeffirelli—who directed Beautiful baby And endless Loverespectively—both are dead, and that Randall is the only director who has made contact.
“I saw his name on my phone, and I thought, ‘What do I do?’ she said nervously. “And I let it go to voicemail because I was like, ‘I want to see what the tone is.'”
“He wants to chat. I don’t know what happened,” she added before explaining why she decided to decline the call.
“I don’t feel like bringing it back again,” she said, “and it’s not about that, you know?”
Speaking generally about the directors she worked with in her early career, when she was portrayed as an underage sex object, Brooke said that it was “very hard to serve your story to these men”. needs to be in a certain category.”
“It was never about me, it was never protective of me. It was fun and loving at times, but I was just there,” she explained. “I was a pawn, I was a piece, I was a commodity.”