Hollywood Can Be Tough for Women Over 50. No One Told Nicole Kidman.

In a year of total cultural domination, the Oscarand Emmywinner has become a model for actorly range and career longevity in an ever-changing industry

- LANE FLORSHEIM

Early on in "Babygirl," there's a scene in which Nicole Kidman, playing a high-powered tech CEO, comes into possession of a tie belonging to her young intern. In the script, what happens next is a single sentence: "She picks up the tie and she goes into her office and smells it."

Kidman takes this directive from Halina Reijn's screenplay to its extreme. Locked in her character's office, she reclines on a couch, seemingly possessed by the tie. She pushes it against her nose, inhaling deeply;rubs it against her face and neck; and, finally, puts it into her mouth, leaning back, eyes closed, in rapture.

It's a wild and vulnerable moment for Kidman in a film full of them. At one point, she laps up milk from a saucer on all fours, like a cat.

On its own, the role would have placed Kidman squarely in the zeitgeist. But the 57-year-old actress has taken on a range of projects this year-from a Taylor Sheridan streaming thriller about the CIA to Netflix's adaptation of an Elin Hilderbrand beach read-that add up to total cultural domination. Acting across genres and formats, high and low, she's become a model for an exceptional and highly lucrative definition of actorly range.

Fans and fellow actors have taken note. Presenting at the Emmys, Steve Martin joked about his trick for talking to actors he doesn't know: "I just say, 'I love your scene with Nicole Kidman.' Nine times out of 10, I'm right!" In an interview, Kidman seemed almost unaware of her ubiquity.

There was no master plan to win the year in culture. She said she navigated her career on intuition alone.

"I have this very strange way of choosing projects," she said, "this very spontaneous gut reaction. I mean, with 'Babygirl,' I was just so drawn to the title alone." Other A-listers might wait for the right project to come to them, or live in agent-stoked fear of overexposure.