Hollywood intimacy coordinator suggests Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni shared an affectionate bond that “felt like a friendship” before their fallout

Hollywood intimacy coordinator Mia Schachter discussed the ongoing feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in the television documentary He Said, She Said: Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni. According to US Weekly, while Schachter has not worked on It Ends With Us, she has worked on Apple TV+'s Lessons in Chemistry, HBO's Insecure, and Perry Mason.

According to the media outlet, the documentary aired on Channel 5 in the U.K. on March 17. Mia Schachter shared that while reviewing the messages of the two actors, she felt they had initially developed a trusting bond. She said:

"From reading their text messages, I do get the sense that, at one point, there was genuine affection between them and what felt like a friendship."

Schachter also mentioned Lively's allegedly not wanting an intimacy coordinator until the shooting started, saying that it shows she seemingly trusted her scene partner. According to The New York Post, Justin Baldoni's January countersuit claims Lively allegedly refused to interact with an intimacy coordinator before the movie's production.

"In my experience, when an actor says, 'I don't need to meet the intimacy coordinator until we're shooting,' as much as it hinders my process, it does typically indicate that they trust their scene partner, and those texts made me think that at one point, she did feel a lot of trust with him," Schachter said.

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Mia Schachter previously commented on the leaked behind-the-scenes footage of It Ends With Us, where Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were dancing

Blake Lively at "It Ends With Us" UK Gala Screening - VIP Arrivals(Image via Getty)

In January 2025, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Mia Schachter, the intimacy coordinator, and asked her about the leaked behind-the-scenes footage of It Ends With Us.

According to the media outlet, the 10-minute footage, filmed in May 2023, shows Lively and Baldoni's characters dancing in a bar. Baldoni's legal team released the footage to disprove the actress's accusations against him. However, Mia Schachter pointed out that in the footage, Blake Lively seemingly looked uncomfortable as Baldoni tried to kiss her.

"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 said.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni Celebrity Sightings In Jersey City - January 12, 2024 - Image via Getty

Mia Schachter told the media outlet that if she had been the movie's intimacy coordinator, she would have discussed the scene with Blake Lively to ensure she was comfortable kissing. She claimed the problem with the 10-minute-long footage was that the scene wasn't planned.

"For an actor, if they know the plan ahead of time and they're not caught off guard, they're often open to trying things. The problem here was that none of this was planned or discussed," she said.

Schachter then criticized Baldoni for not discussing the scene with Blake Lively before filming. She noted that when the actress pulled away, he tried to kiss her again. She said that as the movie's director, Baldoni's responsibility was to ensure Lively was comfortable.

"In a scene like that, without an intimacy coordinator, I think it was his responsibility to ask Blake, 'Hey, what do you think about kissing in this scene?' 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 said.

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Blake Lively's recent movie, Another Simple Favor, was released in theaters on March 7. The black comedy, directed by Paul Feig and written by Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis, is a sequel to the 2018 movie A Simple Favor.