Nicole Kidman raised a glass of milk to “all the babygirls” at the National Board of Review gala as she accepted the award for best actress.
Kidman won for Babygirl. She stars as CEO Romy, who risks her family and career when she begins a psychosexual affair with her much younger intern Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson.
As an ode to a scene where Kidman downs a glass of milk Samuel sends her at an after-work drinks session, the Big Little Lies star walked on stage with a glass of milk and chugged it down at the end of her speech.
“When we found out Babygirl was listed as one of your top 10 films and I had won best actress, our film had not come out yet and you have no idea how important it was to receive that acknowledgement from you,” Kidman said in her acceptance speech at the gala in New York.
“Middle age. Sexuality and women,” she said, raising her glass to the audience. “If anyone would like to join me, please. I’m going to raise a glass of milk to all the baby girls in the room.”
As the attendees cheered, Kidman, who wore a velvet archival Jean Paul Gaultier gown, added: “Good girl!”
Nicole Kidman toasts to “all of the babygirls in the room” with a glass of milk at the NBR Awards. pic.twitter.com/pIL4pZkS39
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) January 8, 2025
Speaking about the sensual milk scene in a recent interview with W Magazine, the film’s writer and director Halina Reijn admitted that it was inspired by an experience in her own life.
Rejin recalled going out for drinks after one of her stage performances. From across the bar, a famous Belgian actor who was “way, way younger” than her sent her a glass of milk.
“I drank it, and he just walked out,” she said. “I thought, ‘How does this guy get the courage?’ I did think it was a very sensual thing to do. And I thought it was very funny.”
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey gave Babygirl four stars, describing it as “a BDSM film rife with fumbling uncertainty, and anchored by two ferociously committed performances from Kidman and Harris Dickinson”.
In a dispatch from Venice, where Babygirl premiered,The Independent’s Geoffrey Macnab wrote: “We’ve all seen Kidman in TV dramas like The Perfect Couple and Expats, giving accomplished but slightly stiff and mannered performances. Here, she digs much deeper.”
“Reijn is one of the Netherlands’ most respected stage actors, well known for her work with the controversial Ivo van Hove,” he added of the film’s director. “She elicits Kidman’s best performance in years as the headstrong, fiercely independent business woman whose sexual submissiveness never seems like weakness. A film that could have slipped into voyeuristic prurience is instead witty, subversive and emotionally revealing.”
Babygirl is out in US theaters now. It will be released in the UK on 10 January.
