CAROLINE BULLOCK: Once shy arm candy, Nicole Kidman is a brassy diva who talks about her Big Os. Is THIS the reason she doesn’t hold back anymore?

Her face seems increasingly frozen, but Nicole Kidman’s inhibitions are melting.

At 57, the actress who made a name for herself in 1989 emerged from prison drama Bangkok Hiltonsuddenly takes no prisoners anymore.

From red carpet diva discussions to ego-fueled La La Land introspection, it all leads to increasingly bizarre behavior.

Take this musing on hubby Keith Urban and her apparent emotional sensitivity during a CBS News Sunday Morning interview earlier this month: “Keith always tells me I’m like a raw egg and he has to be my shell.”

In recent form, I’d say she’s more hard-boiled.

At the LA premiere of the erotic thriller last week Baby girlin which Kidman’s takes a knee-jerk turn as a cougar CEO, the former redhead took a passive-aggressive swipe at a publication apparently deemed unworthy of her platitudes.

“Doll desire?” she asked, speaking to a reporter from the popular showbiz site. A grin and shrug to some off-camera minion followed, just in case there was any doubt that this gossipy streak was beneath her, even as it fueled her publicity machine.

Perhaps, some forty years into her film career, Kidman is selling herself… on her own terms.

Here’s how she described her courageous battle with exhaustion on set during filming Baby girl as she bravely continued with sex scenes with her 28-year-old co-star Harris Dickinson.

“There were times when we were filming and I thought, ‘I don’t want to have an orgasm anymore,'” she said of that age-old occupational hazard in an interview with The Sun.

“It was so present to me all the time that it was almost like a burnout,” Kidman lamented. This is clearly a woman who suffers for her art.

And that’s not the only surprising brutality on display in recent months.

Who can forget that attention-grabbing jostling with actress and producer Salma Hayek at Balenciaga’s Spring 2025 show during Paris Fashion Week in September?

Kidman appeared to hit the ball away Frida the star’s attempt to pose for photos together. The presumed stupidity had all the hallmarks of a Hollywood diva, perhaps heightened by the fear of luxury labels.

You see, Hayek is married to the CEO of Balenciaga’s parent company, while Kidman is a lowly brand ambassador for the fashion house. Kidman may be an outspoken supporter of female filmmakers, but Hayek is someone she doesn’t want to take leadership from.

It’s all a departure from the days when her premiere performances involved nothing more than sliding through the glacier and a stiff smile.

Happy to flash the flesh on film, Kidman always seemed more in a bind off-screen, especially when he was better known as Mrs. Tom Cruise, content with posing more as his ‘plus one’ than as a bona fide star on itself.

Tossed around the red carpet by her little ex, the actress was all smiles of shy and chaste waves, save for the on-cue displays of tasteless PDA smooch that seemed to follow Cruise’s whispered instructions.

Even at her own premiere of the thriller Anger in 1993 it was all about Tom.

‘Did you see it, Tom? What do you think of your dear wife?’ a reporter asked as Kidman giggled and all her attention turned to the master’s verdict standing next to her.

Other times she was less convincing, looking tight-lipped and downright bored as Tom basked in the attention being promoted Some good men when a reporter asked him if it was difficult to “leave her at home” while he was filming….

With a talent arguably more versatile than her franchise-loving ex, it’s no wonder the Stepford women’s routine was always going to be short-lived for Kidman.

Her infamous post-divorce dig hinted at a bite beneath the surface. “Well, I can wear heels now,” she joked during a 2001 episode Late Night with David Letterman when the host asked her about the split.

So it is no big surprise that the Australian is now breaking away again. For starters, this is a turning point in both her personal and professional life. The recent death of her beloved mother, Janelle, in September will have had an effect.

As a mother, Kidman once described her as her “mentor… guide and… caregiver” in a 2020 interview. “She gave me the fire to continue the career that I have because I always wanted to please her.” , Kidman said. “My mother didn’t necessarily get the career she wanted, but she was determined that her daughters would have opportunities….”

Perhaps now without the judgment and earthly influence of her parents – her father Antony died in 2014 – she is even less well-behaved and a little more sensitive to displays of diva entitlement and indulgence.

Maybe it’s because she realizes that life is simply too short for tact and diplomacy.

“Time, as you get older, becomes your most precious commodity,” she told CBS News Sunday Morning’s fawning special correspondent Tracey Smith.

Coming off a year in which she could have been consigned to the pastures of post-’50s Hollywood, Kidman is in demand and still in charge, praised by industry players including Meryl Streep, who delivered a nauseatingly syrupy tribute at the 49th American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.

“You are like a Mustang, a workhorse, a champion racer in one whose spirit they will never break. Never break,” said Streep, ever the artist.

Then there’s the Emmy-winning twist in the TV series Big little lies And The perfect couple.

Kidman is enjoying a career high and finding renewed commercial and critical success with a forte in playing fragile, botoxed beauties.

Is it any wonder she believes the hype?

Some may think we’ve reached Kidman’s peak – but Nicole herself doesn’t seem to have.

As she approaches the big 6-0, while delivering the big O on screen, she is breaking ground both professionally and industrially and it seems everyone needs to know about it.

But does she have the right to be so pleased with herself and so imperious? As an erotic thriller rooted in an older woman’s sexual currency, Baby girl will seem like a progressive antidote to eg Basic instinct classic male fantasy, but does that make it less gross or objectifying?

Isn’t it just more high-gloss kink milking the cash cow fueled by the 50 shades of gray hype from ten years ago?

Not that many will care. It fits with an edgier zeitgeist and sets Kidman up nicely for a third act in her career as a patron saint of female sexual empowerment, with her legacy in mind.

No doubt more compliments will come her way, but should it all come at the cost of a little humility?