Nicole Kidman on Babygirl, Stanley Kubrick, Madonna and Courtney Love

If you think Nicole Kidman is playing the title role in “Babygirl,” the Oscar-winning actress wants a word with you.

It’s just a few days before Christmas and I am talking to Kidman over Zoom for the first “Just for Variety” episode of 2025.

Written and directed by Halina Reijn, the erotic thriller stars Kidman as a tech CEO who has a very kinky sub-dom affair with an intern, played by Harris Dickinson.

I ask Kidman if she or Dickinson is the babygirl.

“Both, right?” she says. “As Halina says in the ‘father figure’ scene, we’re not quite sure who’s the daddy. One minute I’m the daddy, next minute he’s the daddy, which is what I love about the way in which she depicts the generations, the way in which power doesn’t matter what age you are, how it shifts. I think everything’s subverted in this film.”

The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full conversation on “Just for Variety.”

Tell me about your process of first reading the script. Do you have a ritual that you do when you read a script? Do you go off into a corner somewhere? Or is it someone sends it to you and you start reading?

Well, if it’s a good script, I mean, I sit down and I start reading. And then if it holds me, I just read and I don’t stop. And then I make notes, immediately.

Immediately?

Kubrick taught me that. He said, “Because there’s no other thing than the first read. After that, it’s all going to be a slightly different response reaction, but it won’t be immediate and intuitive.” And all the ideas that appear or the lack of things in there. So he used to send you the script in an envelope and say, “I’m going to pick it up in two hours,” and then he would take it back, to make sure that you sat and read it.

Did you send it back to Kubrick with notes?

I didn’t make any notes with him. I was just like, “I’m in, whatever. I don’t even need to read it.” But with Halina and with every script since subsequently, I’ll make notes immediately. If I can’t finish it, then I know it’s not for me. And that isn’t because it’s good or bad, it just means I’m not in it. But with something like “Babygirl,” I read beginning to end and then I just called her and said, “Okay, how do we get it made? What do we do? Tell me now what to do.” We also just talked a lot about what it made me feel, what I responded to, ideas and I had questions for her. It was different to what the film is now, because it was the first draft, or it was I think, one of her first drafts where it was still in the shaping form. There were things in it that you and I can talk about another time, that are not in there now. But it was beautiful to be on that ground level, entering the project that way. Because the other times you enter and it’s a final draft and there’s nothing to be shifted or moved. So this was very much, it was still in motion. But the ideas were so solid and the structure was solid.

How much is your decision when you’re reading the script going, “I kind of fear this, that means I need to do it?”

No, that’s too cerebral for me. It’s too intellectual. I was turned on by it. I was thrilled. I was excited by the actual scenes and things, and then I was scared. I had almost like an audience response to it. And I just loved Romy. I mean, I loved Samuel too. I loved Jacob. It was always taking me by surprise, because everything I thought that it was going to be, it wasn’t. And I just was really captured by it. I was Romy when I was reading it. It’s visceral. The movie is visceral, and so that was my response to it. Then it was like, “Well, how do we do this?” There were things where I was like, “Gosh, I don’t understand this,” because Romy didn’t understand what she was doing. So there were these strange images, which I was like, “What does that mean?” But that’s because it’s a dreamscape mixed with a genre film.

There are some hypotheses, some thoughts out there that this is all Romy’s dream, a fantasy.

I didn’t think that when I read it. I love different responses… And I can be convinced of that now, watching it, I can go, “Ah, interesting.” But that’s not how I initially experienced it.

When people started to tell me why they thought that, I was like, “Okay, how did he get this internship? He’s a little too schlubby for this place. Maybe he’s a little too old?”

When it was unfolding, I was like, “Did he actually plant himself in there, because he’d seen her and met her earlier at some point and become obsessed?” Who knows? That’s always the push-pull in it. And Halina has strong answers to it, but I’m always reluctant to answer those things because audiences should always be able to ascertain what they want from it. It’s like when you go and see a painting and you go, “Well, now it looks different,” or, “Now I’m responding differently to it,” or, “What I was offended by, I’m now drawn to.”

That’s what makes art interesting, that you’re having a discussion afterward. Two human beings have watched the same movie at the same time, and your brains are going in completely different directions. That’s resonating. I imagine that’s the ultimate goal for an artist.

Amazing, yes. And I’ve been in films that have done that. This is an extreme version of it, probably the most extreme for me.

I know you’ve said “Eyes Wide Shut” is more of the male lens with a male protagonist.

Well, marriage, it was about a marriage. But obviously, I was in a different sphere. I was part of his story. And now 20 years later, this is a thing, but they’re very different films. I’ve circled grief and loss and sex and fantasy and desire and yearning. Things that are interesting. I mean, I love dealing in different realms too, like in “Rabbit Hole,” where it’s about parallel universes almost, and wanting to exist in a parallel universe, because this universe is painful. Those things resonate deeply. But I love, as I say, filmmakers who have philosophical points of view.

The other night, me and a bunch of my gay boy friends were having a Nicole Kidman love fest.

I love that. Tell me more. Why wasn’t I invited?

My friend Glenn turns and goes, “You know what? I love what she said recently about why she’s acting so much and how it empowers female filmmakers. And she could get stories made.” I said, “Well, first of all, that was my interview I did with her, so thanks.”

That was to you. That went everywhere. Thank you. It was just us talking on the red carpet.

It was such a beautiful answer. And I don’t know if people didn’t expect that would be the answer. But once you said it, it makes sense.

I get to put my weight and my power and my voice behind people that are either having second chances, third chances, beginning or needing guidance. That’s a purpose for me, so I’m happy to be doing it.

Do you know the first time I saw you, Nicole?

Where?

The Vanity Fair Oscar Party when you were wearing the Galliano dress.

That’s when Madonna and Courtney Love said to me, “Best dressed,” and I was like, “What? Oh my God.” Both of them. They made my year.

I didn’t know what the Vanity Fair Party was. I was an assistant at Premiere and I started a party page. I walked in and I said, “Everyone’s famous in here. This is wild.”

Premiere was a really good magazine, wasn’t it?

That was my first job in entertainment journalism.

Wow. I was just really starting out. I’d done things in Australia and then I came over here and I did “Days of Thunder.” That’s crazy. But it’s lovely too, because I love that you’re still here and we’ve grown up together, we’ve watched things change and shift, but we’re still incredibly excited about what’s to come and what’s going on now. It’s so nice to be a vital part of it still, right?

But the one thing, you have never won a SAG award for film work.

No.

I’m shocked, I’ll be honest with you.

I’ve been nominated rarely too.

What would it mean to you to be recognized by your peers?

You get certain things that sit deeply within you when other actors see what you’ve done on screen and appreciate it or understand it — particularly with this film. I’ve had different actors talk to me about it and it’s like they get it. They know what it takes to do particularly this kind of sexuality on screen. When an actor goes, “I know what that took,” that’s when you go, “Oh, thank you.” And a couple of actors who are really close friends of mine, whose opinions I so value and they’re tough, have talked to me in depth about it. And it’s like when you said you love the film, you’re like, almost, “Can I hug you?” Because it’s like being understood and seen, and that’s a very powerful thing when it happens.

It’s emotional.

It is.

And there’s nothing better as a viewer to get emotional when you’re watching a movie.

Or have a strong response that ignites in your relationship or some sort of discussion in your life. I read recently a piece, I think it was in the New York Times, where he was saying, “I’ve kind of lost my faith in art. I’m not sure that it can change lives.” And I was like, “Oh gosh. Wow, I wonder if that’s true?” And then I thought, “But hold on, I’ve definitely had things where I’ve watched things that have changed my life — changed them or even emotionally unlocking something or opening a door within me that I didn’t quite realize was shut. Or allowing some secret feeling to come alive, because it’s not completely crazy or weird or disturbing.

It’s the best kind of art, and you keep giving it to us, Nicole.

It’s not me. It’s not me.

Nope, you need to take that in.

I can’t.

I know you can’t.

I hang my head. I can’t because it’s shared. It’s beyond. There’s nothing without the person who wrote it, directed it, or acted opposite you. It’s not in existence. And it’s not in existence without the crew, and then the cinematographer who hustles, because you’re lying on the floor crying and they know they’ve got to move to capture it now. And they do. It’s like that’s an energy, that’s tacit agreements between creative people going, “Let’s go for it. Let’s go after it. Let’s chase it and let’s try to find it.”