Martin Freeman Addresses Backlash Over 31-Year Age Gap With ...

In a time when Hollywood is regularly grappling with onscreen age differences past and present, the sordid teacher-student romantic thriller Miller’s Girl may have been bound to spark some backlash, with the film centering on an affair between Jenna Ortega’s 18-year-old student and Martin Freeman’s much older writing teacher.

Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Jade Halley Bartlett, the film debuted theatrically in January, but has opened itself up to more controversy since arriving on Netflix in late April. In a recent interview with London’s The Times, Freeman called the movie “grown-up and nuanced,” noting that any discomfort derived from the 31-year age gap between himself and Ortega was entirely the point. “It’s not saying, ‘Isn’t this great?’” Freeman explained, adding that it’s “a shame” how stories about complex dynamics can often be misunderstood.

In pointing out that Miller’s Girl does not endorse the lead characters’ relationship, Freeman referred to Steven Spielberg’s best-picture winner, 1993’s Schindler’s List, saying, “Are we gonna have a go at Liam Neeson for being in a film about the Holocaust?”

After its initial release, the movie’s intimacy coordinator, Kristina Arjona, told the Daily Mail that 52-year-old Freeman and 21-year-old Ortega were never placed in unsafe situations while filming racier scenes. “There [were] many, many people throughout this process, engaging with [Ortega] to make sure that it was consistent with what she was comfortable with, and she was very determined and very sure of what she wanted to do,” Arjona said, adding, “I’m hyperaware of both of my talent and making sure that we’re consistently checking in and that at no point are any of their boundaries being surpassed.”

Arjona went on to say that she, Ortega, and Freeman engaged in multiple discussions about the “level of nudity” they were comfortable with showing. The two actors spoke to Arjona about “different variations of how they wanted to shoot these scenes so that audiences could watch them at test screenings to see what was too much.”