Inside Nicole Kidman’s Porno ‘Babygirl’: “What Did I Just Do?”
Nicole Kidman still not seen Honey, and she’s not sure whether next week’s Venice International Film Festival premiere is the place to do it. “Something inside me is saying, Okay, this is made for the big screen and for people to see,” she tells me. “But then I’m like, It’s a tightrope walk. I’m not sure I have the courage to do that.” She seems to be plotting her plan as we talk, in her first interview about the film. Having just watched it, I get it. “Maybe I’ll see it that way—I’ll let you know,” she says with a smile. “I’ve done some pretty revealing movies, but not like this.”
There is no doubt that the film was directed by Halina Reijn (Body Body Body) showcases the actress at the height of movie stardom, with a chance to portray something deeper and bolder in a feature film than she’s had in a while. It also fits with her polished resume, and her well-known willingness to take on projects with frank depictions of female sexuality. However Baby girl still veers into surprising territory. In Reijn’s hands, it’s a masterclass in kink, shattering the collective shame around sexual fantasies by presenting one woman’s journey without judgment and in rich, complex layers. It ranges from silly to terrifying to messy to deeply sad. Yes, and sexy. Always sexy.
“I know we’ve done one thing, which is we’ve made a really compelling film,” Reijn said with a grin. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad – that’s up to everyone – but I’m sure of it.”
A talented Dutch stage actor turned director, Reijn wrote Baby girl from her enduring love of erotic film. She became an artist in the works of directors such as Paul Verhoeven (Basic instinct) And Adrian Lyne (Indecent proposal). “They made me feel less alone with my own hidden sexual fantasies and desires, and from that moment on, I started dreaming about the possibility of creating something like that myself—but from my own perspective,” she says. “That gave me even more enthusiasm to try to shed light on it, because I was still struggling with my own shame around it.”
Baby girl Kidman stars as Romy, a powerful New York business executive who seems to be balancing professional success and personal fulfillment in her marriage to a theater director (played by Antonio Banderas). The cracks in that facade reveal themselves late at night, when Romy masturbates alone, after having sex with her husband. She’s no longer in touch with her desires. The specific focus on female orgasm is central to Reijn’s intent. “In movies, you still see a woman having an orgasm on screen that’s anatomically impossible,” she says. That fact hints at Romy’s inner torment: “The more you want to be perfect, the more dangerously things start to fall apart—and you have to deal with things that are actually inside you.”
Enter Samuel (Sad triangle‘S Harris Dickinson), the company’s new intern—and the one who sets the film in motion. As he manages to get Romy appointed as his official advisor, he makes his attraction to her clear. From there, the boundaries of a forbidden sexual dynamic are worked out, beat by beat, and driven by differences in power, age, and gender. Reijn invests in a realistic negotiation between the two that explores their desires toward danger and submission. The director calls this aspect Baby girl an “X-ray” of sexual preferences. It’s fascinating, strange, and revealing—and crucial to the film’s irresistible erotic power. “They try to play these different, fun roles with each other, but they can also be scary and embarrassing,” says Reijn. “We’re not showing this glamorous fantasy; it’s really an attempt to show the human side of it all. In my opinion, it’s much hotter because it’s not just about the perfect end result—which often takes place in the bedroom.”
Romy and Samuel’s first real encounter, a beautifully choreographed duet in a seedy hotel room, crystallizes all of this and redefines Romy for the audience. “When we meet her, we only see the top layer of her existence, which is all charming and Christmassy and The Sound of Music–like,” Reijn says. “In a secret hotel room, we see a very different animal, if you will. I think a lot of women are not comfortable with the animal in themselves. They would rather entrust it to a bad boyfriend.”
