Early in Nicole Kidman’s career, she was a tall, skinny redhead in a world of celebratedly-sexualised bombshells: Kim Basinger, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry… And the Tom Cruise-era headlines were cruel. She was labelled an ice queen. There was the vile hiss of rumours about her motivations, her sexuality, her fertility. It was bulls**t. It was the 90s.
The post-Tom version of Nicole was a free f**king spirit, who whooped outside the divorce lawyers’ office (hello, infamous pap photo), who made risky career choices (hello, fake nose in The Hours), who dated hot musicians, (hello, Lenny Kravitz).
You can project all the ice-queen bulls**t you want onto her, but PDA Nic says, but she’s sexy, self-realised woman who loves love. Don’t you forget it.
2. Because being a grown-up doesn’t make you sexless.
Nicole Kidman is 55 years old. I know, I know, not your version of 55 years-old – or mine – but a Hollywood imagining of what mid-50s looks like.
She’s at the absolute top of her game, but she’s swimming in a youth-themed ocean, battling the tides of ageism and competing for covers with Lily Rose Depp, whose dad she knew before he was a punchline.
Nicole wants – no, needs – you to know that she might be a proper grown-up now, but she’s never been better at her job, never looked better, and she’s not about go quietly into the night, with her Wordle and her gardening gloves.