During awards season, Champagne flows freely—as five-time Oscar nominee Nicole Kidman knows all too well. From the Golden Globes to the Critics Choice Awards to the Grammys to the Oscars, the best actors of the year are often toasted with a glass of bubbly.
Kidman, however, is celebrating her nominations with a different beverage: milk. At the gala for the National Board of Review, a New York organization made up of seasoned cinephiles who award their own distinctions, the actor paid tribute to her Babygirl character with an ice cold glass.
Like Demi Moore for The Substance and Mikey Madison for Anora, Nicole Kidman is one of this season’s favorites thanks to her stunning portrayal of Romy in Babygirl. She plays a CEO charmed by Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an intern who turns her daily life upside down by encouraging her to indulge her BDSM fantasies. Already crowned best actress at the Venice Film Festival and the Palm Springs Festival, she has received unanimous acclaim for her ultra-audacious, unsettling performance in a film that aptly questions the notion of power, female sexuality, and the perception of age. So, to receive her new award at the National Board of Review gala, she paid tribute to a key scene from Babygirl—without spoiling anything, since it’s available in the trailer.
In the scene we see Romy drinking a large glass of milk in one go, in a bar. At first surprised to be brought milk by the waiter, she understands that the delivery is a power move by Samuel, who stares at her from a few yards away. Her gaze fixed on his, she looks defiant and finishes her glass without flinching, wiping the corner of her mouth when she finishes. In the film, this scene is a tipping point for their relationship, which is as torrid as it is tortuous.
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Even before the release of Babygirl, this sequence caused a stir among moviegoers, who speculated about its context and had a field day reinterpreting it in videos, memes, and subtly erotic puns shared on social networks. Faced with the phenomenon, Nicole Kidman punctuated her acceptance speech with a toast to “all the babygirls in the room” and by drinking a large glass of milk in the space of a few seconds. The actor concluded with a mischievous “Good girl,” another of the film’s iconic lines.
For the occasion, Kidman wore a long black velvet halter dress, from the Jean Paul Gaultier archives, edged with stones and pearls. After her glamorous XXL-volume hairstyle at the Golden Globes over the weekend, she opted for a sideswept ponytail with a few loose strands to frame her face. A special mention must go to her unique earring, perfectly matched to the embellishments.
