Nicole Kidman was exhausted from orgasming again and again while filming Babygirl

At an age when many start to slow down, 57-year-old Australian actress Nicole Kidman is enjoying one of her busiest years yet with three films and three television series in 2024 – and the raunchiest sex scenes of her career.

She was a grief-stricken mother in the drama Expats; had an affair with a hot young movie star in the romantic-comedy movie A Family Affair; was a murder suspect in the mystery series The Perfect Couple; and played a spy chief on Season 2 of the thriller Lioness.

More recently, she voiced a queen in the animated fantasy flick Spellbound, and now she headlines the new erotic thriller Babygirl, playing a high-powered executive who risks it all for a torrid fling with a young male intern.

Opening in Singapore cinemas on Jan 2, the latter earned Kidman a seven-minute standing ovation and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice International Film Festival in September, sparking talk of an Oscar nod.

At a screening of Babygirl in New York in October, Kidman says she was fascinated by the story, which was inspired by 1990s erotic thrillers such as Basic Instinct (1992), and entails explicit sex scenes with her 28-year-old English co-star Harris Dickinson (Triangle Of Sadness, 2022).

“I read the script and I thought it was so funny, but I also was turned on by it and hypnotised. I just loved that I never knew what was going to happen next, and nothing is as it seems as it unravels.

“And I was, like, ‘Right, that’s my film. If I don’t get to make this, it will be so devastatingly painful,’” recalls the star, who won a Best Actress Oscar for the period drama The Hours (2002) and an Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy for the comedy-drama Big Little Lies (2017 to 2019).

But it was not a given that she would get the part.

“As an actor, you’re always in a position where you have to be chosen and a director goes, ‘I want you.’

“So, we’re not in a position of control, and when something like this comes your way – particularly at this age – it’s just a gift,” says Kidman. She was also Oscar-nominated for Moulin Rouge! (2001), Rabbit Hole (2010), Lion (2016) and Being The Ricardos (2021).

Babygirl has made headlines with its raunchy trailer, which teases some of the film’s lengthy intimate scenes.

Dutch writer-director Halina Reijn, 49, says one of her goals is to spark a discussion about the so-called “orgasm gap” – the disparity in how women and men experience sexual pleasure, as well as how this is depicted on screen.

But Kidman says shooting the sex scenes was exhausting, even though there was “an enormous amount of sharing and trust” between her and co-stars Dickinson and Antonio Banderas, the 64-year-old Spanish actor (The Mask Of Zorro, 1998) who plays her onscreen husband.

“There were days when it was just too much.

“There were times when we were shooting when I was, like, ‘I don’t want to orgasm any more. Don’t come near me, I hate doing this, I’m over it.’”

“It was almost like burnout,” says Kidman, who is married to Australian country singer Keith Urban, 57, and has two daughters with him aged 15 and 13.

The movie eventually sees Kidman’s character Romy admitting what she really wants in terms of intimacy and other aspects of her life.

“And discovering it as well,” adds the star, who also shares an adopted daughter, 31, and son, 29, with her former husband, American actor Tom Cruise, 62.

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There has been a similar process of self-discovery in her own life.

“A lot of the time in my life, as I go along, I realise I didn’t actually know that about myself – I didn’t know that’s what I wanted. It’s a winding path of discovery.

“People say, ‘What do you really want? Bare your soul’ – particularly in a relationship. But you’re like, ‘I’m not sure’, and it changes.

“That’s what I love about the way Halina wrote this: It was like a discovery for Romy through the whole film.”

Kidman recently told entertainment magazine Variety that one reason she is taking on so many projects is so she can create more work for people in the industry and help up-and-coming talent such as Reijn.

In 2017, Kidman also pledged to work with a female director at least once every 18 months to boost the numbers of women film-makers in Hollywood.

And she says she could not have made Babygirl with anyone but Reijn. “I don’t think I could have done it with a man.

“The only way I could do this was with her because the two of us would sit and talk about so many things that are so secretive and vulnerable – but it’s safe, and with that comes growth,” Kidman says.

“So this film is funny and entertaining, but hopefully, it releases something in some people, or at least starts questions.”

Babygirl opens in Singapore cinemas on Jan 2.

This article was originally published in The Straits Times.