Blue Lagoon director Randall Kleiser intervened in Brooke Shields’ love life on the set of the 1980 film, according to co-star Christopher Atkins.
Last week, Atkins claimed on the Media Pass podcast that Kreiser tried to force the two actors to date in order to make their on-screen relationship seem more believable.
Atkins, now 65, said: “At first it was like a little romance.” “And the director wanted us to have a romance so that it comes out in the movie.”
Ms. Atkins, who was 18 and lived on the ship during filming, claimed that Ms. Kreiser, now 79, made every effort to make Ms. Shields, then 15, fall in love with her.
“He had a picture of Brooke on my bunk on the boat, so I looked at her every night before I went to bed and fell in love with her, and that’s what you see on film,” Atkins revealed.
“Yeah, there was a little romance on the island and all that stuff, but it was so innocent and sweet.”
Atkins also said he was “very protective” of Shields, now 61, who served as his mentor during filming.
“I didn’t know anything about filmmaking, so she really helped me with a lot of that,” he explained. “I learned as I went along.”
Atkins added of Shields, “She was amazing. I can’t say enough about her.”
Page Six has reached out to representatives for Mr. Shields and Mr. Kreiser for comment.
In “Blue Lagoon,” Shields and Atkins play a pair who fall in love and have a child after being shipwrecked on a tropical island in the South Pacific.
Shields spoke out against being forced into an off-camera relationship with Atkins on his show “Now What?” Podcasts in 2022.
“They really wanted us to fall in love with each other,” the supermodel recalls. “I didn’t react well to being made to feel anything. I had never even kissed anyone before that age.”
Shields also said that she did not enjoy the nude scenes with Atkins.
“I thought, ‘Oh my god, why should I watch this?'” Shields said. “‘I’ve never seen anything like that and I’m not going to start now!'”
Atkins said the “butt-naked” scene was “awkward” for Shields.
“After that movie, I had a hard time keeping my clothes on,” he joked.
