Harris Dickinson and Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl.”
Babygirl writer-director Halina Reijn is defending the age gap between Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson’s characters in the new erotic thriller.
Rated R, Babygirl opened in theaters on Christmas Day. In the film, Kidman plays Romy, a powerful corporate CEO who has a steamy extra-marital affair with a new intern, Samuel (Dickinson) at her company.
While the ages of the Kidman and Dickinson’s characters are not discussed in Babygirl, the large age gap between the two characters is acknowledged. In real life, Kidman is 57 and Dickinson is 28.
In a recent interview with W Magazine, Reijn defended the age gap of the characters in Babygirl.
“If we see a movie where the male actor is the same age as the female actor, we find that odd. Which is insane,” Reijn told W. “It should completely be normalized that the age gaps switch and that women have different relationships. We’re not trapped in a box anymore. We internalize the male gaze, we internalize patriarchy, and we need to free ourselves from it. It’s really hard.”
The release of Babygirl from indie distributor A24 isn’t the first high-profile film in 2024 to examine a May-December romantic relationship.
In The Idea of You, which debuted the SXSW Film & TV Festival in March, Anne Hathaway plays the single mother of teen who dates a much younger musician (Nicholas Galitzine).
Nicole Kidman Insisted That Halina Reijn Not Change The ‘Babygirl’ Script
While Babygirl is clearly about a secret extramarital affair where Romy puts her career and livelihood at stake, Halina Reijn ramps up the intensity by working in some 50 Shades of Grey-like BDSM behavior into the plot.
As such, Harris Dickinson’s Samuel plays the Christian Grey-like dominant partner in the relationship, while Nicole Kidman’s Romy acts as his Anastasia Steele-like submissive.
Despite the script’s lurid tone, Reijn said that Kidman was completely on board with her vision and requested that no changes were made to the character of Romy in the script.
“Nicole approached me about working together after seeing my first film, Instinct,” Reijn told W. “She read a very early draft of Babygirl and immediately said, ‘I want to play that character.’
“She also said she wanted to surrender to it and not change a thing,” Reijn added. “That was important to me, because I knew I wrote something controversial and, at least for me, surrounded by shame. I needed someone to be as courageous as the script tries to be.”
Per The Numbers, Babygirl earned $7.2 million from 2,115 theaters in its five-day Christmas weekend opening at the domestic box office.
Kidman has also attracted big awards season attention for her turn in Babygirl, including a Best Actress honor from the National Board of Review and a nomination for Best Female Actor in a Drama from the Golden Globes.
Also starring Antonio Banderas and Sophie Wilde, Babygirl is playing in theaters nationwide.
