Halina Reijn’s creative journey began on stage as an actress, honing her skills at the prestigious Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts in the Netherlands. Her breakout moment came in 1997 when she played Ophelia in a Hamlet stage production directed by Theu Boermans. Since then, she has carved out a career which spans across theater and film. She made a seamless transition to directing in 2019 with her debut feature Instinct, followed by the widely celebrated Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). Her latest project is last year’s Babygirl — which she wrote and directed. It stars Nicole Kidman as a woman who risks her tranquil home life by engaging in a torrid affair with a younger colleague.
More: Babygirl director Halina Reijn on her visceral approach to filmmaking (The Treatment, 2025)
For her Treat, Reijn reflects on her appreciation for Hedda Gabler, the iconic play from 1891 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. She first encountered the work during her time at theater school in Maastricht, and found the role to be a rare opportunity to showcase her full range as an actress. Playing Hedda offered the chance for her to dig into a character’s full emotional depth — unlike some of the more limiting roles she had taken on before. Hedda’s struggles — being stuck in an unhappy marriage while having the ability to shape her own fate — delved into the character’s inner turmoil and existential despair. For Reijn, stepping into Hedda’s shoes was not only a deeply fulfilling experience as an actress, but also turned out to be a big inspiration for creating Babygirl.
This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I was impacted very, very, very, very much by a play called Hedda Gabler, and it was written by [Henrik] Ibsen. I found it when I was in theater school in a city called Maastricht.
Hedda Gabler is so dear to me because I read a lot of plays and I performed a lot of plays over the years because I was a stage actress. I'm no longer acting now, but Hedda Gabler for me was the only role that I felt I could show all my different sides. And with a lot of the other roles, I felt very imprisoned, and I felt limited, and I felt the man had the better role. I always wanted to play Hamlet, but I had to be Ophelia.
Hedda Gabler, I just felt very much in charge on stage. I felt that I could express myself. And this woman thinks that she's trapped in a marriage, but she's not. She could definitely escape, but she thinks she's completely trapped in it, and she says that she's bored to death. But of course, that is only a symptom of her existential depression, and a lot of people come to her house and visit her, and she starts to manipulate everybody, and kind of starts to want to influence everybody's life and destroy everybody's lives, because she feels a very destructive force inside herself against herself.
It only took me a couple of years for me to see that Hedda could actually leave, because her friend Thea comes to visit her, and she did leave. And Ibsen, of course, does that on purpose. He does it with Nora [Helmer] in A Doll's House again, where he introduces another woman who did leave her marriage. So it's absolutely not about really, literally, the door being closed, but it is about a woman feeling trapped inside herself and not allowing herself to be free within, of course, a system of patriarchy.
Also what I love about her, but what is very dark, is that instead of looking at herself and really working on herself, she starts to destroy other people. But to play that is, of course, so wonderful. There's nothing more wonderful. In Ivo Van Hove’s production, we bring so much truth and it was just always so fun to do with the other actors and to really go there with each other. And I mean, it was one of my favorite roles ever.
That was my biggest inspiration for Babygirl. It's an amazing play to read. You can find it for free on the internet. I would advise everybody to read it.