Every morning I wake up and immediately put on a pop song as loud as humanly possible in order to get me awake and ready for the day. For a while, this song was “Crank” by Slayyyter, a very noisy and aggressive song, which I really needed for a while. Now, my mood has shifted with the seasons, and I set the mood every day with “Nicole Kidman” by Adéla.
“Nicole Kidman” is a sensual ode to the actress Nicole Kidman, one of my favorite actresses of all time. She has an incredible filmography, ranging from the experimental (Eyes Wide Shut, The Killing of a Sacred Deer) to the broadly commercial (Practical Magic, Moulin Rouge). She’s a prolific actress as well, and still working in both film and TV. Some of my favorite roles of hers come from this later period in her career, like the absolutely deranged Babygirl and Robert Eggers’ viking revenge saga The Northman.
But what I think I like most about Kidman is her professionalism and her forthrightness about the business she works in. She’s an artist, undeniably, but she also uses the power she has amassed to try to effect change in what remains an incredibly harsh world for women actors. She never stops working, and in 2017 pledged to work with female directors at least every 18 months. She then went on to work with 19 female filmmakers over a period of eight years. In a conversation with Time in 2025, she said that this was partially because she understands that the women who are able to have their films financed have a pressure to “be perfect” in their debut films. Part of this is because of how few women are able to reach a place of even being able to make a film. According to the 2026 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, only 10% of theatrical films in 2025 were directed by women, down from 12% in 2017 when Kidman initially started seeking out women directors to work with.
“It can be changed,” Kidman told Time, “but it can only be changed by actually being in the films of women.”
Adéla, a pop singer from Slovakia who taught herself English at eight by watching television, seems more or less born to be a popstar. In fact, you might have previously seen her on the documentary Dream Academy, which covered the formation of the group Katseye, which she later called “the worst year of my life.” She has a background in ballet, moving to Vienna to join the Vienna State Ballet and then London to study at the English National Ballet School when she was a teenager. Beyond being an athletic dancer, she has this smooth and erotic voice that works beautifully with her more high energy and outright sexual songs like “SexOnTheBeat” or “Machine Girl.” But what I love about “Nicole Kidman” is that that sexuality is turned inward. In this song, she’s the “babygirl in control, I feel like Nicole.”
Do I feel like Nicole Kidman when I wake up, bleary eyed, to another full day of writing and editing? No. But this song, an ode to looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking “I’m that bitch” gets me a little closer to that feeling. To work in the entertainment industry, as an actress, a singer or even a humble writer, is to accept that you are slightly delusional. Success happens for very few women and femmes. What’s more likely is getting chewed up and spit out by the machine that is the entertainment industry. When I listen to “Nicole Kidman,” I feel imbued with confidence and the ability to make my own destiny.
