GUILTY PLEASURES

Nicole Kidman on playing a married woman discovering her sexual self with a much younger man - and why she found it freeing to shed her own inhibitions on set

Nicole Kidman has been exploring themes of sexuality since co-starring with her then-husband Tom Cruise in psychosexual drama Eyes Wide Shut.

Fast-forward 25 years and she's still intrigued by the prospect of playing a woman discovering her sexual self in new thriller Babygirl, for which she has been nominated for a Golden Globe.

The actress plays high-powered chief executive Romy, who puts her career and family on the line after experiencing a sexual awakening with an intern half her age, played by 28-year-old Harris Dickinson.

You might think an Academy Award-winning star like Nicole, 57, who has been married to country singer Keith Urban for 18 years, would be reluctant to share her own bedroom secrets, but she was only too happy to open up to Babygirl's female director Halina Reijn.

"There was a lot of sharing of secrets, sharing of intimacies, sharing of desires," she says.

"Which is really like sitting in a room with your girlfriend and saying things you wouldn't be saying to the world, and then going: 'Oh my God, do you feel that too?' So that was really liberating and freeing in itself." When Romy finally discovers sexual pleasure, she becomes hooked, risking her marriage to loving husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), with whom she has two children.