Although Nicole Kidman is no stranger to a sexually provocative role, 25 years after starring in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, her latest film offered an under-explored onscreen dynamic.
During a recent Q&A about her new film Babygirl, premiering Christmas Day in theaters, the Oscar winner opened up about the “liberating” experience of starring alongside Harris Dickinson in the Halina Reijn-helmed A24 erotic thriller.
“I’ve always been on a quest as an actor, I’m always going, where have I not been? And what can I explore as a human being?” she explained, according to People. “And this was an area I’d never been.”
Babygirl stars Kidman as Romy, a high-powered CEO who puts her life’s work on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much-younger intern Samuel (Dickinson).
Kidman said, “There’s a sort of a jump off the cliff thing where you go, okay, I’m just going to abandon everything and explore this with the people that I trust in a genre that is already set, but hopefully we can explore new territory and especially with the female at the helm.”
BABYGIRL, from left: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, 2024. © A24 / Courtesy Everett Collection
“You have your director at the helm going, ‘I will protect you. Nothing that’s going to be in the film will be anything that you are not comfortable with. You are going to be okay,’” she added.
The actress also explained “an enormous amount of trust” in her young co-star went into the performance. “We would look at each other and go, ‘okay,’” said Kidman.
Dickinson admitted, “Of course there were days where I would go in really terrified of a scene or I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” But he noted “there was never a day that if the scene wasn’t working or if we weren’t comfortable or we weren’t getting something, we never felt that time was more important. It was just like, ‘Okay, everyone go away for a second.’”
