Babygirl: Everything We Know About Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson’s Steamy Thriller

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson’s latest film, Babygirl, has everyone talking—and for good reason.

Babygirl explores an age-gap relationship in which a woman in a position of power embarks on a sexual affair with her intern. Yes, Kidman’s character is the one having the affair, and the intern is played by the Iron Claw star. But the complex power dynamics aren’t quite what you might think (think less “boss abusing power” and more “BDSM”).

In a new interview, Kidman called the role “liberating” but said she had to pause filming at one point due to the intensity of the sex scenes and days of endless touch.

“There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration,” she said. “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.’”

She went on to describe how exhausted she felt by the process, reflecting on her feelings: “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.”

In an interview with People, she also talked about really going there, as well as the importance of having a woman in charge. “There’s a sort a ‘jump off the cliff’ thing where you go, Okay, I’m just going to abandon everything and explore this with the people that I trust in a genre that is already set, but hopefully we can explore new territory and especially with female at the helm,” she said.

We also know that Babygirl director Halina Reijn was inspired by the sexual thriller Basic Instinct, which starred Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas, about a woman who hadn’t been sexually satisfied in her marriage.