- Nicole Kidman “so turned on” during Babygirl shoot she had to take breaks
- “I don’t want to orgasm any more” says star
- The actor has a long history of delivering daring roles
Nicole Kidman is no stranger to pushing the envelope and with her new movie Babygirl, she’s pushing things as far as they’ll go.
Directed by Halina Reijn, this steamy relationship drama has already turned heads following preview screenings on the 2024 festival circuit. It stars Kidman as Romy, a respected and powerful company CEO who embarks on a passionate and controversial affair with a much younger work colleague named Samuel, played by The Iron Claw’s Harris Dickinson.
During a recent interview with The Sun, Kidman revealed that shooting the movie’s kinky love scenes left her “so turned on” that she had to take regular breaks, insisting that “I don’t want to orgasm any more.”
“There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration,” she told the outlet. “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… Don’t come near me. I hate doing this. I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life!”
Intense – and yet this is far from the first time Kidman has put it all on the line in the name of a good performance.
Read on to explore a handful of the star’s most daring roles delivered throughout a screen career that’s spanned thirty years and counting…
Eyes Wide Shut
The late ’90s saw Kidman collaborate with legendary director Stanley Kubrick on what would become his final feature film.
Starring alongside her then-husband Tom Cruise, this relationship drama is loosely based on the German novella Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler and follows a couple who have their relationship put to the test when Alice (Kidman) tells her husband Bill (Cruise) that she almost had an affair months earlier.
For all of its shocking moments – including Bill’s foray into a masked and ritualistic orgy with definite cult undertones – perhaps the most daring aspect of this role is Kidman’s decision to embark on it with her actual then-husband.
While rumours of the pair’s deteriorating relationship had begun swirling off-screen (the pair would ultimately divorce just two years after the film’s 1999 debut), playing a role designed to test your partner’s dedication – with your real-life spouse – must have made a tricky performance even more complex.
While the finished movie is a bit of a muddle of themes, Kidman’s portrayal of conflicted wife Alice remains one of its most watchable elements.
Birth
Directed by Jonathan Glazer, 2004’s Birth is a psychological drama that required Kidman to develop a husband-and-wife-like bond with a 10-year-old boy.
The film introduces us to Anna, a happily married woman who loses her husband Sean without warning. More than a decade later, we meet her once more at a key point in her life. However, just as she’s about to accept a marriage proposal from her new hubby Joseph, a young child enters her life claiming to be the reincarnation of her former partner.
While initially skeptical, Anna is drawn in by the boy’s seemingly miraculous knowledge of the life she once shared with Sean and soon, her new relationship is pulled into question.
Elevator pitch aside, Glazer’s film drew controversy thanks to a scene where Kidman’s character shares a bath with the young boy claiming to be her late husband. Despite both appearing naked in what appears to be the same sequence, it was later revealed that the duo was not only not naked but not even in the same room during the majority of the scene’s shoot.
During the brief moment they did share screen time, both were wearing clothing that simply wasn’t visible by the cameras. Still, it’s a moment that drew lots of eyeballs to the movie and has since helped to make it one of Kidman’s most daring performances to date.
The Paperboy
Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy follows two journalists investigating a murder case involving a death row inmate.
The siblings are played by Matthew McConaughey and Zac Efron, with John Cusack playing the felon in question – but it’s Kidman’s hyper-sexualised performance as Charlotte, a woman who has fallen for the criminal at the centre of the film despite having never met him in person – that helped put this film on the map.
Throughout the movie, Charlotte makes it clear that she regularly has sex with men – telling her male counterparts that its the “most natural thing in the world.” As such, Kidman’s performance is full of provocative energy. At one point, she can be seen urinating over Efron’s character to save him from a jellyfish sting, while in another, the intensity of her affections causes Cusack to randomly ejaculate during a prison visit.
Ultimately, the film itself wasn’t that well received, falling into the cracks of Kidman’s extensive career so far. However, the star’s raw portrayal of a complex female character makes it one of her boldest performances of recent years.
