We're all talking about Nicole Kidman's latest film, Babygirl. It explores an age-gap relationship in which a woman in a position of power embarks on a sexual affair with her intern.
Yes, Nicole will be having the affair, and the intern will be played by The Iron Claw star Harris Dickinson… but the complex power dynamics at play perhaps aren't quite what you might think. And the intimate scenes look to be quite something.
In a new interview, Nicole has described the filming process as “liberating”, but had to pause filming at one point due to the intensity of the sex scenes and days of a huge amount of touch and “frustration”.
She's telling her story, her way.
“There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration. It’s like, ‘Don’t touch me.’ There were times when we were shooting where I was like, ‘I don’t want to orgasm any more.’”
She went on to describe how exhausted she felt by the process, reflecting on her feelings: “Don’t come near me. I hate doing this. I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life! I’m over it. It was so present all the time for me that it was almost like a burnout.”
In an interview with People, she also talked about “abandoning everything” and “exploring new territory” in the film, and the importance of having a woman in charge while doing this. "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," she said.
We also know that Babygirl director Halina Reijn was inspired by sexual thriller Basic Instinct, starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas, and the story of a woman who hadn't been sexually satisfied in her marriage.
This also isn't Nicole's first movie centred around an age-gap relationship, let alone the only popular one we've seen in 2024. Earlier this year, she starred in A Family Affair alongside Zac Efron as her love interest – and of course, Anne Hathaway blew us all away in rom-com smash The Idea of You, where she plays a 40-something divorcée who begins an affair with a 20-something popstar.
Call us intrigued about this latest sexual escapade at the movies – here's what we know so far about Babygirl.
Babygirl plot
It will explore sexual and power dynamics in the workplace, and has been described as an erotic thriller.
The movie's official (albeit brief) plot synopsis reads: “A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with a much younger intern.” Nicole will play said CEO, whose marriage is on the rocks, and said affair with Samuel (Harris Dickinson) starts out with some BDSM sexual exploration – with her intern as the dominating partner.
She has called it the most exposing film of her career in an interview with IndieWire.
“I’ve made some films that are pretty exposing, but not like this,” she said. “I just work with abandonment. […] A lot of the themes in my movies have been explored through the lens of sexuality. I’ve not eliminated that or tried to pretend it isn’t there. […] That’s vulnerable, but I’m never going to shy away from that to my dying day. I’ll place myself in a vulnerable position, and see where that takes me.”
Looking back on the experience of playing the role, she recalls the discomfort and complexity around it, and that she “never came out of it, really”. “It left me ragged. At some point I was like, I don’t want to be touched,” she said. “I don’t want to do this anymore, but at the same time I was compelled to do it.
“I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being. I had to go in and go out like, I need to put my protection back on. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do?”
Nicole also spoke about her anxiety about the world seeing Babygirl, as well as the safe environment that director Halina Reijn created on set. “Halina would hold me and I would hold her, because it was just very confronting to me,” she said. “It was being able to talk unbelievably honestly and graphically — and that’s woman-to-woman, as though you are sitting on your bed and talking to your sister or your best friend. That’s incredibly safe.
"Halina has a very strong maternal instinct, so she was very protective of all of us. But particularly me.”
Halina herself told IndieWire that she's sure that she's made a “really hot movie”, above all else.“I know we accomplished one thing, and that is that we made a really hot movie. I don’t know about good, bad — that’s up to everybody — but I’m sure of that,” she said.
Babygirl cast
Alongside Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson will be Everything Now and Talk To Me star Sophie Wilde, Antonio Banderas, Jean Reno, Victor Slezak, Esther McGregor, Vaughan Reilly and Anoop Desai.
Babygirl release date
It will drop in UK cinemas on 10 January 2025.
Babygirl trailer
It's hard to look away. We see the different power dynamics at play, we see the sexual chemistry – and we learn a little more about the relationship that centres the film. In one stirring scene, Samuel (Dickinson) impulsively tells his boss Romy (Kidman): “I think you like to be told what to do,” before quickly adding shyly, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… that was incredibly inappropriate.”
Of course, you can probably guess what happens next. But the trailer is sure to give you a very good idea.
