Nicole Kidman admitted that filming for the erotic thriller left her feeling ‘very exposed’
Nicole Kidman has revealed that she felt ‘very exposed’ while filming NSFW scenes for her erotic new thriller.
The actor, 57, is no stranger to performing complex and sometimes sexually explicit characters, having starred in the likes of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and, more recently, Netflix flick A Family Affair alongside Zac Efron and Joey King.
However, Kidman has now opened up about how the intimate scenes in her upcoming film felt like ‘something you do and hide in your home videos’.
The movie we’re talking about is, of course, Halina Reijn’s (Bodies Bodies Bodies) Babygirl.
Written, directed and co-produced by Reijn, the film sees Kidman play Romy, a successful CEO who is also married to a theatre director named Jacob (Antonio Banderas).
On the surface it seems like Romy has everything she could want, however cracks begin to show after an unfulfilling sexual encounter with her husband.
Things take a drastic turn after she meets her company’s new intern, a much younger man named Samuel (Harris Dickinson) and the pair begin a passionate and forbidden affair.
Given the film’s steamy synopsis, it’s unsurprising that Babygirl features X-rated scenes – with Kidman revealing what the filming process was like in an interview with Vanity Fair prior to the Venice Film Festival.
“It left me ragged. At some point I was like, I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to do this anymore, but at the same time I was compelled to do it,” she explained.
Kidman went on to add that she was unsure at the time if she’d be ‘brave’ enough to watch it back, despite knowing Babygirl was ‘made for the big screen and to be seen with people’.
Kidman has since said it was ‘very freeing’ to make the film (Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
“It’s like, Golly, I’m doing this, and it’s actually now going to be seen by the world. That’s a very weird feeling,” she continued. “This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.
“I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being.”
Despite the sexually charged nature of the film, Kidman would later go on to clarify in a press conference at the Venice Film Festival that while Babygirl is ‘obviously about sex’, it is also about ‘desire, secrets, marriage, power, and consent’.
She also heaped praise on Reijn as a director, adding to Variety: “I knew she wasn’t going to exploit me. However anyone interprets that, I didn’t feel exploited. I felt very much a part of it. There was enormous caretaking by all of us.”
Babygirl will premiere in the US and Canada on 25 December, 2024. It is set to be released in the UK on 10 January, 2025.
