Babygirl: Everything We Know About Nicole Kidman and Harris ...

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson’s latest film, Babygirl, has everyone talking—and for good reason.

Babygirl explores an age-gap relationship in which a woman in a position of power embarks on a sexual affair with her intern. Yes, Kidman’s character is the one having the affair, and the intern is played by the Iron Claw star. But the complex power dynamics aren’t quite what you might think (think less “boss abusing power” and more “BDSM”).

In a new interview, Kidman called the role “liberating” but said she had to pause filming at one point due to the intensity of the sex scenes and days of endless touch.

“There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration,” she said. “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 really going there, as well as the importance of having a woman in charge. “There’s a sort 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 female at the helm,” she said.

We also know that Babygirl director Halina Reijn was inspired by the sexual thriller Basic Instinct, which starred Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas, about a woman who hadn’t been sexually satisfied in her marriage.

Niko Tavernise

This isn’t Kidman’s first movie centered 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, in which she plays a 40-something divorcée who begins an affair with a 20-something pop star.

Here’s what we know so far about Babygirl.

The film explores 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.” Kidman plays Romy, said CEO, whose marriage is on the rocks, and Harris Dickinson stars as the intern Samuel, who is also Romy’s dominating partner.

Kidman has called this project the most exposing film of her career.

“I’ve made some films that are pretty exposing, but not like this,” she said in an interview with IndieWire. “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, she recalls the discomfort and complexity around it, and said 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.

Niko Tavernise

“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,” Kidman adds. ‘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.

As well as Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson, Babygirl stars Sophie Wilde, Antonio Banderas, Jean Reno, Victor Slezak, Esther McGregor, Vaughan Reilly, and Anoop Desai.

Courtesy of A24

A24 will release Babygirl in theaters on December 25. Merry Christmas to all.

Yep, and it’s hard to look away from.

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.

This post will be updated.

This article first appeared on Glamour UK.