In what is considered to be her raunchiest performance to date, Nicole Kidman is said to feel ‘sexier than ever’ ahead of the release of erotic thriller Babygirl.
The actress, 57, has had her fair share of risque scenes over her long career, from in an orgy in 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, to playing a courtesan in Moulin Rouge and a steamy fling with Zac Efron’s much younger character in A Family Affair.
But her latest role as a high-powered New York business executive could be her most talked about yet after she admitted it left her with ‘orgasm burnout.’
Starring as Romy, Nicole has told of how it’s the most ‘exposed’ she has ever felt in front of the camera.
And as she continues to push the boundaries of what it mean to be sexy as she approaches 60, here, MailOnline takes a look at her raciest roles to date.
Eyes Wide Shut, 1999
Stanley Kubrick’s classic film Eyes Wide Shut stars Tom Cruise as Dr. Bill Hartford, whose marriage to his wife Alice (Nicole) hits a rough patch when he obsessively ruminates over a possible infidelity.
During a brief estrangement, he wanders the streets of New York City — despite the film being shot entirely in the UK — before finding himself enmeshed in the dark games of upper-crust elites.
The film famously includes a lengthy sequence in which Tom’s character gains entry to a ball for wealthy masked men to unleash their sexual fantasies, before he realises that he’s in great danger.
It premiered in 1999 and became a box office hit after grossing $162 million against a $65 million budget.
Nicole famously starred in an orgy scene with her then-husband Tom for the film.
Speaking in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Nicole detailed the relationship that the married costars had with director Stanley while filming the dark drama.
She opined that the director was ‘mining’ their marriage for material to flesh out the film, according to Box Office Mojo.
The former couple tied the knot in 1990 and were wed until 2001. They share two adopted children; Bella, 31, and Connor, 29.
The Top Gun star and the actress spent years working on the film, which began production in 1996 and wrapped in 1998, before being released in the summer of 1999, giving it the record for the longest continuous film shoot at 400 days.
Stanley would die at age 70 just days after showing what was reportedly his final cut of the film to its stars.
Nicole described how the filmmaker would quiz her and Tom about their marriage as he helped them shape their performances.
‘There were ideas [Kubrick] was interested in. He’d ask a lot of questions. But he had a strong sense of the story he was telling,’ she recalled.
‘I do remember him saying, “Triangles are hard. You have to tread carefully when it’s a triangle.” Because one person could feel ganged up on, but he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.’
Although she clarified that she never felt ‘ganged up on,’ she did admit that Stanley treated his actors differently.
‘There’s something about being a woman in that equation, too,’ she explained. ‘And Stanley liked women.
‘He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character,’ Nicole revealed.
Moulin Rouge!, 2001
Nicole was a sensation as she sang and danced while playing the desirable Satine in Baz Lurhmann’s 2001 Moulin Rouge.
With her long strawberry hair worn down and her corset-clad costumes, the actress played the night club’s star performer and courtesan.
It follows the story of a young English poet, Christian, played by Ewan McGregor, who travels to Paris in 1899.
He becomes infatuated with Satine, but the couple are forced to meet in secret as she is set to marry a Duke in return for funding to turn the club into a theatre.
Back in 2017 Nicole and Ewan reminisced on their wild partying antics while working on the romantic musical Moulin Rouge in the 90s.
Nicole admitted to Ewan on Variety’s Actors on Actors series: ‘We’d have great parties!’
While the film was based within a 1900-era Parisian club, it appears their characters’ colourful debauchery influenced some of their late-night shenanigans with the cast.
After discussing dancing and acting rehearsals at Baz’s villa, Nicole chimed in: ‘Then we’d have great parties. Remember those Friday nights, those Saturday nights?’
The Fargo star laughed as he said: ‘Not all of them… Don’t remember all of them.’
‘Exactly!’ Nicole chuckled in response.
Nicole continued to retell how their wild nights involved liquor and dancing on tables.
‘I remember absinthe being passed out at some point and me going, ‘Is this safe?’ I was so, sort of, naive,’ the Big Little Lies star said.
However, she followed the comment by gesturing she shot the alcohol anyway, cheerfully adding: ‘Then going ‘I ‘spose it is’.’
The Paperboy, 2012
Nicole stars in the 2012 crime drama The Paperboy that was written, directed and co-produced by Lee Daniels.
She plays Charlotte Bless, a trailer-trash Southern blonde who befriends a death-row inmate, Hillary Van Wetter, played by John Cusack, and fights to prove his innocence.
Along the way she meets a lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) and his brother (Zac Efron).
In one scene that was much talked about in Cannes and at the Toronto International Film Festival, Nicole’s character visits Cusack in jail and they tease each other to the point of sexual satisfaction.
Later Nicole, wearing a bikini, squats over Zac’s jellyfish-stung body and urinates on him, to ease the pain.
She finds herself the object of lust for Zac’s 20-year-old character Jack, in a role which CBS called ‘one of the most uninhibited seen on screen in recent years’.
She told the channel: ‘It’s the rawest thing I’ve done,’ she said, though she hates the film being defined by what she terms ‘the peeing scene’.
‘A lot of things scare me, but I try to push through that. So I don’t think I’m fearless … I think I actually have a lot of fear.
‘But my whole life I’ve tried to just jump into the things that make me scared. I think we all knew we were pushing ourselves – and we were all willing to do it.
‘It was exceedingly hot, and so that kind of gives you a whole different feeling … like being in a dream.
In preparing for the role she met with five women who were themselves ‘prison groupies’.
‘For me, playing it, it’s a woman who is obviously very damaged and is terrified of intimacy, of being close to someone, which is a common thread a lot of time with the relationships with people in prison, because they’re in prison – as soon as they get out, it’s a whole different thing,’ Nicole said.
‘I said, ”I don’t know how I’m going to be authentic in this role,” and one of them said, ”You go, girl!”
‘She kind of gave me the confidence. And then I just let it flow out of me, I kind of went with it. I didn’t want to censor myself in any way, and so I just went straight into the character and didn’t step out of it until we were done filming.’For me the freedom of her sexuality was important. I didn’t want to be saying ”No” to anything, which is an important part of being an actor, is learning not to shut down and not to say ”No”, and be completely free.
‘I think as you get older you get a little more frightened – that’s the thing that makes me want to go, ”Oh, screw this, I just want to push through that,” and never stop myself from fighting through my own insecurities.’
Big Little Lies, 2017
Nicole and Reese Witherspoon both star in and produced The HBO series, Big Little Lies which follows the intrigues and scandals simmering underneath the gilded lives of a group of suburban mothers in tony Monterey, California.
She plays Celeste – a wife trapped in a toxic and abusive relationship, she struggles to fall out of love with her abuser (played by Alexander Skarsgård).
The fifth episode of the HBO show explored the complexities of the disturbing marriage between Celeste (Kidman) and Perry (Alexander).
Early in the episode the gorgeous and wealthy couple can be seen passionately locked in sexual intercourse on the family’s kitchen countertop.
Abusive Perry is almost nude as he places his wife on the kitchen counter while he wears nothing but a bathrobe.
The intensity of their passion is overwhelming, but is underscored by the terrifying instances of emotional and physical abuse showcased in the mini series.
In an effort to salvage their marriage, in episode three, following another violent outburst by Perry the two go to a therapist for help.
While Perry, partially admitted to abusing his wife to the counselor, in a private session Celeste is more guarded.
Her therapist, expertly portrayed by Robin Weigert, delicately probes the topic of her husband’s violence.
Celeste, while internally visualizing the various humiliations and abusive wrath she endures from her husband (and in its own twisted way how the abuse turns her on), lies to her therapist, protecting her spouse from any potential ramifications.
The Perfect Couple, 2024
Nicole and Liev Schreiber lead the buzzy cast of this upcoming limited series, following a wealthy Nantucket family whose lives are turned upside down.
The show is adapted from the 2018 novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, who has been dubbed, ‘queen of the beach reads.
Nicole and Liev play a married couple who become involved in a murder mystery in the show, and also have their fair share of racy scenes – oe includes a passionate clinch by a window.
The Perfect Couple director Susanne Bier has explained how Nicole and Liev’s sex scene was deliberately ‘uncomfortable’.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Susanne said the scene which shows Nicole’s character Greer repeatedly telling her husband Tag (Schreiber) not to touch her before she succumbs and they have sex, is meant to play as a tense, uncomfortable moment for the viewers.
‘It’s sort of a little bit of an uncomfortable sex scene in there. It doesn’t feel entirely mutual in a way,’ the director explained.
‘It was a way of describing the emotional thing that was going on between the two of them, as opposed to just describing the physical.
‘But also, it was very conscious. We understand exactly what’s going on, but we are still keeping certain things literally on the ropes.’
A Family Affair, 2024
Reuniting over ten years later, Nicole and Zac play a mother and her daughter’s movie star boss who embark on a steamy affair.
One saucy scene sees the Australian actress slam the actor against the wall, before mounting him on a bed before he rips off her shirt.
‘I’ve waited for you forever,’ he says breathlessly as they disrobe and kiss passionately.
Zac spoke to People about the role, telling the publication, ‘I was still a bit apprehensive but reuniting with Nicole is always so great and as talented as she as an actress, she is equally kind, caring and wonderful to spend time with.’
Describing their sizzling on-screen chemistry, he said it was ‘seamless, natural and fun’.
Speaking at the time a source close to the star told DailyMail.com: ‘Nicole feels sexier than ever being over 50 and showing skin – and her true fans applaud her for it.
‘Nicole knows what people are saying and she is going to continue to push the boundaries with her outfit choices because she believes it is important for women to be proud of their bodies,’ they continued.
‘She is completely unapologetic for anything that she wears and laughs at any criticism that she may get over her daring choices.
‘She is redefining the definition of what beauty is and showing that you don’t have to be 20 to be sexy.’
The source added: ‘Nicole knows who she is and she knows that she is healthy, fit and happy’.
Baby Girl, 2025
The actress stars in the upcoming erotic movie as a high-powered New York business executive who starts a risky affair with her much-younger intern, played by Harris Dickinson, 28.
Speaking about her risqué role, the A-lister has admitted she felt ‘vulnerable’ filming the multiple scenes of masturbation, plus a depiction of a submissive/dominant relationship as part of the sex scenes.
Nicole also admitted she was so turned on when shooting erotic drama Babygirl that at one point she had to pause filming.
Addressing the sex scenes, Nicole admitted it is the most ‘exposed’ she has ever felt in front of the camera.
The trailer for Babygirl shows how Nicole’s character becomes increasingly ‘liberated’ by the steamy liaisons.
It begins with Romy first noticing Samuel on the street, after he calms down a dog who had begun running towards her.
Viewers are then given a glimpse into Romy’s life balancing her career with family, from caring to her children to her relationship with her adoring husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas).
In a revealing new interview Nicole said that performing the scenes with Harrison and Antonio, was often too much to cope with.
She explained: ‘There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration. 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! I’m over it. It was so present all the time for me that it was almost like a burnout.’
Speaking to Vanity Fair prior to the production’s Venice Film Festival premiere, Nicole admitted she wasn’t sure whether she was ‘brave enough’ to watch the film on the big screen during the event.
‘There’s something in me going: ‘Okay, this was made for the big screen and to be seen with people. I’m not sure I have that much bravery,’ Nicole told the publication.
‘I’ve made some films that are pretty exposing, but not like this,’ she added of the ‘confronting’ experience.
Nicole shared her apprehension over audiences seeing the sex scenes, admitting that the ‘vulnerable’ filming process left her feeling ‘ragged’.
‘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 said.
‘This is something you hide in your home videos. It’s not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.’
Babygirl hits cinemas on Christmas Day in the US and January 10 in the UK.
Director Halina Reijn was inspired by Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas’ sexual thriller Basic Instinct and by hearing about a woman who had never experienced sexual pleasure during her 25-year marriage.
Nicole said she was attracted to the project because it was ‘an area [she’d] never been’ in her career.
She explained: ‘I’ve always been on a quest as an actor, I’m always going, where have I not been? And what can I explore as a human being? And this was an area I’d never been.’
The Hollywood star has already received critical acclaim for what is considered her raunchiest performance to date following the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August, where she was awarded Best Actress.
The cast convened with an intimacy co-ordinator for the racy scenes and Nicole believes she was able to act the racy moments because Halina was a female director.
She said: ‘It’s the story that I wanted to be a part of, that I wanted to tell, and every part of me was committed to that. There was enormous care taken by all of us.
‘We were all very, very gentle with each other and helped each other – Harris, Antonio.’
Babygirl is set for release on 25 December 2024 in the United States and 10 January 2025 in the United Kingdom.
