How Nicole Kidman is redefining the female gaze with ‘Babygirl’: “It’s uncharted territory”

“It feels new,” says Nicole Kidman of her performance in Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, as a successful career woman exploring her physical desires. That’s saying something because Kidman has appeared in nearly 100 films and series since her screen career started about 40 years ago.

“It feels like I’ve stepped into territory that I’ve never been before and explored facets of myself that I’ve never explored, and been able to have a very, very rigorous look at what that means. It’s a place of huge vulnerability.”

Kidman believes Babygirl is groundbreaking not just for her career, but for the industry. “The film is definitely pioneering a new way in which the female gaze is able to tell stories,” she says. “That’s Halina’s unique voice and I’m glad to support it with my own voice.”

Kidman plays Romy, a tech company CEO in New York who is raising a family with her successful theatre director husband (Antonio Banderas). But she risks everything, personally and professionally, by starting a steamy affair with intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) in pursuit of the sexual pleasure that has always been missing with her husband.

Kidman won the Volpi Cup for best actress at Venice at the film’s world premiere and is nominated for best actress at the Golden Globes. If Kidman finds favour with Oscar voters, this would be her sixth acting nomination; her one and only win was more than two decades ago, when she won best actress for Stephen Daldry’s The Hours.

Babygirl – which A24 launches in North America on December 25 – is about more than sex, of course. As Kidman reflects, “I think Romy is having a crisis at a stage in her life where she’s thinking, ‘I’m just about to get everything I want, yet I’m not being true to who I am, because I’m not even quite sure who I am. I’ve hidden it.’ I think she’s on a journey of self-discovery through the film; the performance is difficult because it’s unfurling. The onion is being peeled back as you go, and we’re not quite sure what’s underneath.”

One reason Kidman felt supported to take on the role was that she had already been developing a creative relationship with Dutch writer/­director Reijn. “I saw [Reijn’s 2019 debut feature] Instinct and thought she was so interesting, and had such a strong, unique voice. We were working on another script together, and Babygirl came from that.”

Reijn’s bold voice was matched by her openness to collaboration – Reijn is a longtime actress herself and wanted to support her cast to have the freedom they needed to take on these challenging roles. “She left it a little bit open for us to come in,” says Kidman. “That’s the beauty of a writer/director, they can spend time with you, listen to you, go back, rewrite, change things and mould things. Even at 11 o’clock after a long day of shooting, she’d text you back and say, ‘Yes, I can talk.’”

That atmosphere helped Kidman’s collaborations with Banderas and Dickinson. “We all became very tight and intimate in terms of sharing stories and sharing ideas and rehearsing and working on things,” she recalls. “The energy of it was very scrappy because it was low-budget – that requires a crew and a cast who are all just kind of going for it… Sometimes we were shooting eight scenes a day.”

Safe space

One striking aspect of her performance is the guttural sound Kidman makes to express Romy’s sexual pleasure. She says it was an aspect of the role that she spoke about with Reijn a lot, but they did not rehearse it.

“Woman to woman, there is an understanding. There’s almost tele­pathy between Halina and [myself]. And then she would tell things, she would act things out, and we would try things, and she would share her own stories. I would share mine. It felt very safe.”

Having personal insight into what Romy is going through helped Kidman tap into the character.

“The more she discovers through Samuel about her personality and what actually turns her on and what actually she’s desiring… and then she decides she doesn’t want it, and then she does, and then she can’t let it go,” she reflects. “She’s constantly conflicted. That’s a relatable place for me, because I don’t know that many people who can say, ‘I know exactly who I am and exactly what I want, and it never changes.’”

Kidman likens her collaboration with Reijn to the working relationship she has had with Susanne Bier, who has directed her in TV’s The Undoing and 2024 Netflix hit The Perfect Couple. “I end up having these very intense, wonderful relationships with the directors I work with, and that’s what keeps propelling me forward,” says Kidman.

The actress says she never stopped to think if starring in Babygirl might jeopardise other career prospects. “I don’t think I ever think like that. If I thought like that about the choices I make, I probably wouldn’t have made anywhere near the kind of films I’ve made.

“As an actor, I have to be in it, responding, creating,” she continues. “Even if I feel embarrassed, then that goes into the performance. So you blush on camera because of that, you cry because of that, you laugh, or you dance. You have the responses that are immediate and spontaneous and real.”

Kidman’s career momentum continues unabated, boosted by her producorial activities that began in 2003 with Jane Campion’s In The Cut. Among her company Blossom Films’ upcoming productions is the Liz Sarnoff-­created Amazon MGM Studios series Scarpetta for Prime Video, based on Patricia Cornwell’s book series, in which she will star as the titular forensic pathologist, with Jamie Lee Curtis playing her sister.

Kidman has found it fascinating to hear the range of audience responses to Babygirl. “It’s amazing how intimate people get with me seconds after seeing the film,” she says. “It’s run the gamut from people saying, ‘This is the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen,’ to ‘This is the best film and I can’t wait to talk to my partner about it.’

“The response has been a want to talk about women, sexuality, secrets, desire, yearning… I hope it will carve a path for the next group of films that express different facets of all of this. I think it’s uncharted territory.”

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