Despite being one of the most successful actors in recent memory, Nicole Kidman became a bit of a meme due to her role in AMC Theaters’ ad campaign. However, she recently reminded everyone of her abilities with her role in the erotic thriller Babygirl, which “captivated” her from the start.
Babygirl follows Kidman’s Romy Mathis, who is the CEO of a successful tech company and seems to have it all. However, her sex life with her husband isn’t great, and she begins having an affair to spice things up. It’s a story about a woman who wants to take power back in her life, which is something that really spoke to Kidman.
“It captivated me; it didn’t scare me. Yes, there’s sex, but it’s existential in its crisis for this character: A woman’s having an exploration of who she is at this particular age, in this relationship – the different roles that she plays, her desire to hold on to her power and then relinquish it,” she told W Magazine. “It’s very honest, which I love. Halina [Reijn] has taken that genre of ’90s sexual thrillers and subverted it and made it her own. This is her third film as a director, but as an actress she worked with Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove quite a lot. She’s incredibly rigorous in terms of performance and commitment. She wrote it, she’s directed it, and she basically could play every role in it.”
Related: Angelina Jolie Reveals She Became an Actress to Fulfill Her Late Mother’s Dream: ‘It Made Her Happy’
W’s editor at large, Lynn Hirschberg, pushed a little farther, pointing out that Kidman refused to give herself credit for her standout performance. “I never give myself credit. I would love to give her all the credit,” Kidman continued. “I’m so relieved that I love the film. It’s hard when you do something like this and then you go, ‘I don’t like the film.’ But I learned early on that it’s actually not about me anyway; it really is about a vision. How do you help put these stories on-screen? They’re not about me, Nicole. They’re a much wider look at human beings and the way we exist in the world.”
Kidman is obviously giving a very honest answer, and it makes it clear why AMC reached out to her for its campaign. Movies are all about telling a story that captivates the audience, and even if people want to joke about her sitting alone in a theater talking about heartbreak, she’s not going to change the way she does things. After all, it’s worked for her up to this point, as she’s starred in some of the most critically acclaimed movies of all time, including Eyes Wide Shut and Days of Thunder.
In 2025, Kidman will look to build on her success by producing and starring in a major project on the small screen, Prime Video’s Scarpetta, which is based on the book by the same name by Patricia Cornwell.
Babygirl is in theaters now.
Published: Jan 3, 2025 11:55 am