Brooke Shields on why controversial film The Blue Lagoon would never be made now

Brooke Shields played the marooned Emmeline in the desert island adventure The Blue Lagoon. Photo / Getty Images

It became a cult classic when it hit cinemas in 1980, but 42 years on, Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins have reunited to dish on the controversial film The Blue Lagoon that saw them as young teens embark on a relationship while stranded on a desert island.

In Shields’ latest episode of her Now What? podcast, she discusses the film in which she starred at the age of 14, and was naked or scantily clad for the most part.

Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins in a scene from the 1980 film. Photo / Getty Images

Recalling the Hollywood adaptation from the novel of the same name where two cousins grow up alone on a desert island and fall in love as teens, she says: “Never again will a movie be made like that ... it wouldn’t be allowed.”

According to streaming review website Decider, Shields revealed animals were hurt during the making of director Randal Kleiser’s movie and children were filmed “naked running down a beach”.

Atkins, 18 at the time, remembers some of those scenes too, adding that he was “chafed up to no end”.

He went on to recall with Shields: “There were scenes where I was butt naked with you, if you remember, sliding down that slide and things like that. And that was a little awkward, but it was kind of funny for me because at this point in time I would just do it.”

And Shields remembered some unusual elements of her barely-there costuming too, sharing that while her long hair was taped down over her breasts, “I don’t know what I was trying to cover. Remember the bumpy pads? They would stick these little flesh-coloured things to my nipple because nipple is where they drew the line, evidently, with this movie.”

Christopher Atkins smells Brooke Shields' hair while she is sleeping in a scene from The Blue Lagoon. Photo / Getty Images

In a film with an excessive amount of nudity, Shields reveals she had barely kissed anybody at the tender age of 14, and recalls cast and crew “desperately” pitching for her and Atkins to begin a romance off-camera.

“They wanted us so desperately to fall in love with each other,” says Shields.

“It also struck me, too, because I remember thinking, ‘Hey, let’s just get to know each other first rather than trying to make us fall in love with each other and force the situation.’

“And I didn’t react well to being forced into feeling anything. I wanted to sort of be left a little bit to my own.”

Brooke Shields has revealed she'd never “really kissed anybody" when she was 14 and filming The Blue Lagoon. Photo / Getty Images

As it turned out, the pair never did take their retrospectively unsettling island tryst beyond the film.

But Atkins, who reiterates their ages in Shields’ podcast, says: “The chemistry between us was just amazing. There were a lot of great, great moments that went on there,” he said. “I think it was a lot of that innocence that came off in the film that made it work even more.”