look at her with her almost natural hair....I think hers was actually more curly back in the day....she looks niceNicole Kidman on the set of 'The Undoing', March 28, 2019
source: zimbio.com
Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban
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54th Academy Of Country Music Awards at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino on April 07, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada
source: zimbio.com
source: zimbio.com
Did she really cut her hair into a pixie or is this a wig? Anyone know? Pic from Google images via Vanity Fair
She wears a lot of wigs. This is probably one as well.
I actually like that silvery dress. Very unique! And her body is still on point. Her face, especially up close, is another story in itself. Horrible. It looks like the skin on her cheeks is pulled all the way to her ears. And then there’s those earlobes. Another reason to stop wearing heavy earrings...
Vanity Fair US, May 2019
Nicole Kidman Burns Brighter Than Ever
BY KRISTA SMITH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY COLLIER SCHORR
STYLED BY SAMIRA NASR
Nicole Kidman is one of the few movie stars left in Hollywood. Her chameleonic acting abilities are legend; her beauty, profuse. She is poised and regal—a perennial showstopper. It’s hard to imagine that she is even human. Almost two hours into our hike in Nashville’s Radnor Lake State Park, however, Kidman becomes undeniably mortal.
“I have to pee,” she announces. That makes two of us. Looking around, we see nothing but road ahead and road behind. “It’s 30 minutes this way,” she gestures, “and an hour that way.” Then, in her lilt, says, “And I think we may be lost.”
I look her straight in the eye and break the news. We’re going to have to go in the great outdoors. Dressed all in black—parka, beanie, cargo pants, sneakers, and backpack, carrying coffee, water, and apples—and not a stitch of makeup on, the glamazon climbs a small hill and flashes those baby blues: “Remember, it was you who didn’t want to go to a café.” Then, from behind the tree, “Keep asking me questions!”
Our hike around the roughly 1,400-acre natural reserve is not the first time our paths have crossed—in Australia, shortly after she married Keith Urban, she giddily told me about her hope to give birth; in Los Angeles last year, she courageously ate worms for Vanity Fair’s Secret Talent Theater, a heroic display still collecting views on YouTube.
This time, we’re on a dirt trail winding through nature where you could easily get lost for hours—and we nearly did—looking for a notoriously elusive owl. Despite the cold, we pass a few clusters of people—some carrying long-lens cameras. “That’s our paparazzi,” Kidman says with a laugh. But we’re in Nashville—and here the sights are trained on actual wildlife. A group of young women passes us, and I’m shocked none even do a double take at the Oscar-, Golden Globe–, SAG Award–, and Emmy-winning star. “No wonder you love Nashville,” I tell her. “Total privacy,” she concurs. I learn over my time spent here that “Nashville etiquette” means letting people live their lives in peace. “See? This is why I live here.”
This bucolic Tennessee life offers respite from Kidman’s wildly dynamic and duly prolific career, making her a once-in-a-generation talent with no signs of slowing down. There was the role that ignited it all, in Dead Calm (1989). She took a risky star turn that paid off in Gus Van Sant’s To Die For (1995), then stayed busy with big studio films like Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge! (2001), and, in that same year, The Others. She got her best-actress Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002). More obscure artistic adventures followed—Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) had her crawling on all fours in a dog collar; Birth (2004) drew controversy for a scene in which Kidman bathed with a child. Films like The Stepford Wives (2004), Bewitched (2005), and The Interpreter (2005) skewed more commercial, though to less acclaim. In Fur (2006), as Diane Arbus, she shaves Robert Downey Jr.’s entire body. She launched her production company, Blossom Films, with the festival hit Rabbit Hole, then pushed new limits in Lee Daniels’s follow-up to Precious, The PaperBoy. Last year she was nearly unrecognizable in the gritty neo-noir Destroyer, and then as the Southern mother to a gay son in the coversion-therapy film Boy Erased, both while DC Comics’ Aquaman grossed more than a billion dollars. Big Little Lies, the seven-part series that received 19 nominations and 13 awards, marked a return to the small screen, where she got her start as a teenager in Australia. This V.F. cover makes her 10th.
Nicole Kidman Burns Brighter Than Ever
BY KRISTA SMITH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY COLLIER SCHORR
STYLED BY SAMIRA NASR
Nicole Kidman is one of the few movie stars left in Hollywood. Her chameleonic acting abilities are legend; her beauty, profuse. She is poised and regal—a perennial showstopper. It’s hard to imagine that she is even human. Almost two hours into our hike in Nashville’s Radnor Lake State Park, however, Kidman becomes undeniably mortal.
“I have to pee,” she announces. That makes two of us. Looking around, we see nothing but road ahead and road behind. “It’s 30 minutes this way,” she gestures, “and an hour that way.” Then, in her lilt, says, “And I think we may be lost.”
I look her straight in the eye and break the news. We’re going to have to go in the great outdoors. Dressed all in black—parka, beanie, cargo pants, sneakers, and backpack, carrying coffee, water, and apples—and not a stitch of makeup on, the glamazon climbs a small hill and flashes those baby blues: “Remember, it was you who didn’t want to go to a café.” Then, from behind the tree, “Keep asking me questions!”
Our hike around the roughly 1,400-acre natural reserve is not the first time our paths have crossed—in Australia, shortly after she married Keith Urban, she giddily told me about her hope to give birth; in Los Angeles last year, she courageously ate worms for Vanity Fair’s Secret Talent Theater, a heroic display still collecting views on YouTube.
This time, we’re on a dirt trail winding through nature where you could easily get lost for hours—and we nearly did—looking for a notoriously elusive owl. Despite the cold, we pass a few clusters of people—some carrying long-lens cameras. “That’s our paparazzi,” Kidman says with a laugh. But we’re in Nashville—and here the sights are trained on actual wildlife. A group of young women passes us, and I’m shocked none even do a double take at the Oscar-, Golden Globe–, SAG Award–, and Emmy-winning star. “No wonder you love Nashville,” I tell her. “Total privacy,” she concurs. I learn over my time spent here that “Nashville etiquette” means letting people live their lives in peace. “See? This is why I live here.”
This bucolic Tennessee life offers respite from Kidman’s wildly dynamic and duly prolific career, making her a once-in-a-generation talent with no signs of slowing down. There was the role that ignited it all, in Dead Calm (1989). She took a risky star turn that paid off in Gus Van Sant’s To Die For (1995), then stayed busy with big studio films like Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge! (2001), and, in that same year, The Others. She got her best-actress Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002). More obscure artistic adventures followed—Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) had her crawling on all fours in a dog collar; Birth (2004) drew controversy for a scene in which Kidman bathed with a child. Films like The Stepford Wives (2004), Bewitched (2005), and The Interpreter (2005) skewed more commercial, though to less acclaim. In Fur (2006), as Diane Arbus, she shaves Robert Downey Jr.’s entire body. She launched her production company, Blossom Films, with the festival hit Rabbit Hole, then pushed new limits in Lee Daniels’s follow-up to Precious, The PaperBoy. Last year she was nearly unrecognizable in the gritty neo-noir Destroyer, and then as the Southern mother to a gay son in the coversion-therapy film Boy Erased, both while DC Comics’ Aquaman grossed more than a billion dollars. Big Little Lies, the seven-part series that received 19 nominations and 13 awards, marked a return to the small screen, where she got her start as a teenager in Australia. This V.F. cover makes her 10th.
^^
“I’ve done weird films and I’ve done things that are so obtuse, which I’m still committed to because I like performance art and not conforming to what everyone expects of you. I don’t think in normal terms.” She laughs as she tells me, “Keith always says, ‘You’re so not mainstream.’ ”
Kidman made Nashville her home 13 years ago, after she and Urban got married. (To put things in perspective, her 10-year marriage to Tom Cruise ended two decades ago.) Urban, last year’s Country Music Association Awards’ Entertainer of the Year and 2019’s Academy of Country Music Awards’ Entertainer of the Year, sells out arenas worldwide but despite their doubly blinding megawattage as a couple, “[it’s] extremely simple with what we want from each other and what we want from a relationship. Just peas in a pod in that regard,” says Kidman. She loves being a “tour wife” and says she can memorize his tour schedule and dates in one glance. “I love that Keith is a guitar player and a singer, but his passion is guitar and writing music,” she says. “That’s what I’m around every day.”
The whole family loves music. Faith, 8, plays violin. Sunday, 10, who was playing piano that morning, is also interested in her mother’s line of work. Sunday showed me an iPad film, a hospital drama, that she made with her friends. Maybe it’s just a phase; neither parent pressures the children to follow in their footsteps. “You can’t really get kids into anything, I’ve realized. You can push them a bit, but motivation is a really hard thing. I mean, nobody motivated me to be an actor; if anything they tried to deter me.” Kidman loved Gwyneth Paltrow’s Mother’s Day Goop podcast because Paltrow and Blythe Danner explored their mother-daughter relationship in the context of their shared industry.
Though Kidman is jet-lagged, just back from Europe the night before—Urban has been on his Graffiti U World Tour—she has already chaperoned a fourth-grade trip to the state capitol this morning. Kidman and Urban are involved parents, in the unique way that means for ones who go on world tours, or movie sets, and bring the girls, plus tutor, along. Kidman keeps them with her as often as possible when she’s working or flies home constantly, even during intense shoots. Yet in other ways, Sunday and Faith sound like any other kids. Kidman says her parental policies might even make her “unpopular”—“They don’t have a phone and I don’t allow them to have an Instagram,” she says. “I try to keep some sort of boundaries.”
Kidman’s children with Cruise are now adults. Their son, Conner, is in music and, Kidman tells me, lives in Miami. Their daughter, Bella, is married and recently launched the T-shirt line BKC (Bella Kidman Cruise). “Bella lives just outside London. You know, she really feels more English. We lived there for Eyes Wide Shut, Mission Impossible, and The Portrait of a Lady,” says Kidman. “They both had English accents when they were little.”
Motherhood has allowed Kidman to flex her mind in other ways. She says people are shocked by how good she is with numbers (though it’s always a challenge to get her kids to do their schoolwork), and that brings a certain agility to her day job. Kidman’s producing partner of 10 years, Per Saari, confirms: “She’s as analytical as she is creative. She’s able to sit down and look at a budget and work that as magically as she’s able to sit down with a script and arc a character. Her superpower is her brain. And she never forgets anything, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
This spring, Blossom Films began shooting The Undoing, based on the book You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The six-part series is directed by Susanne Bier, and Kidman has re-teamed with Big Little Lies’ David E. Kelley to write and executive-produce. Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland will star with Kidman. Additionally, Blossom just signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios and already has a series, The Expatriates, in pre-production.
At 51, Kidman is that historical Hollywood age when women, especially leading ladies, are expected—or forced—to fade to black, perhaps a Broadway role or cameo as the lights dim. Instead, Kidman burns bright as ever. After the success of 2018 are two pivotal roles, as Mrs. Barbour in The Goldfinch and Gretchen Carlson in Jay Roach’s still-untitled Roger Ailes biopic.
“There isn’t a shelf life like there used to be,” Kidman tells me. “That’s why it’s so important to keep changing. We live longer now, if we’re fortunate. So there has to be a place to put all that creative energy.”
“I’ve done weird films and I’ve done things that are so obtuse, which I’m still committed to because I like performance art and not conforming to what everyone expects of you. I don’t think in normal terms.” She laughs as she tells me, “Keith always says, ‘You’re so not mainstream.’ ”
Kidman made Nashville her home 13 years ago, after she and Urban got married. (To put things in perspective, her 10-year marriage to Tom Cruise ended two decades ago.) Urban, last year’s Country Music Association Awards’ Entertainer of the Year and 2019’s Academy of Country Music Awards’ Entertainer of the Year, sells out arenas worldwide but despite their doubly blinding megawattage as a couple, “[it’s] extremely simple with what we want from each other and what we want from a relationship. Just peas in a pod in that regard,” says Kidman. She loves being a “tour wife” and says she can memorize his tour schedule and dates in one glance. “I love that Keith is a guitar player and a singer, but his passion is guitar and writing music,” she says. “That’s what I’m around every day.”
The whole family loves music. Faith, 8, plays violin. Sunday, 10, who was playing piano that morning, is also interested in her mother’s line of work. Sunday showed me an iPad film, a hospital drama, that she made with her friends. Maybe it’s just a phase; neither parent pressures the children to follow in their footsteps. “You can’t really get kids into anything, I’ve realized. You can push them a bit, but motivation is a really hard thing. I mean, nobody motivated me to be an actor; if anything they tried to deter me.” Kidman loved Gwyneth Paltrow’s Mother’s Day Goop podcast because Paltrow and Blythe Danner explored their mother-daughter relationship in the context of their shared industry.
Though Kidman is jet-lagged, just back from Europe the night before—Urban has been on his Graffiti U World Tour—she has already chaperoned a fourth-grade trip to the state capitol this morning. Kidman and Urban are involved parents, in the unique way that means for ones who go on world tours, or movie sets, and bring the girls, plus tutor, along. Kidman keeps them with her as often as possible when she’s working or flies home constantly, even during intense shoots. Yet in other ways, Sunday and Faith sound like any other kids. Kidman says her parental policies might even make her “unpopular”—“They don’t have a phone and I don’t allow them to have an Instagram,” she says. “I try to keep some sort of boundaries.”
Kidman’s children with Cruise are now adults. Their son, Conner, is in music and, Kidman tells me, lives in Miami. Their daughter, Bella, is married and recently launched the T-shirt line BKC (Bella Kidman Cruise). “Bella lives just outside London. You know, she really feels more English. We lived there for Eyes Wide Shut, Mission Impossible, and The Portrait of a Lady,” says Kidman. “They both had English accents when they were little.”
Motherhood has allowed Kidman to flex her mind in other ways. She says people are shocked by how good she is with numbers (though it’s always a challenge to get her kids to do their schoolwork), and that brings a certain agility to her day job. Kidman’s producing partner of 10 years, Per Saari, confirms: “She’s as analytical as she is creative. She’s able to sit down and look at a budget and work that as magically as she’s able to sit down with a script and arc a character. Her superpower is her brain. And she never forgets anything, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
This spring, Blossom Films began shooting The Undoing, based on the book You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The six-part series is directed by Susanne Bier, and Kidman has re-teamed with Big Little Lies’ David E. Kelley to write and executive-produce. Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland will star with Kidman. Additionally, Blossom just signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios and already has a series, The Expatriates, in pre-production.
At 51, Kidman is that historical Hollywood age when women, especially leading ladies, are expected—or forced—to fade to black, perhaps a Broadway role or cameo as the lights dim. Instead, Kidman burns bright as ever. After the success of 2018 are two pivotal roles, as Mrs. Barbour in The Goldfinch and Gretchen Carlson in Jay Roach’s still-untitled Roger Ailes biopic.
“There isn’t a shelf life like there used to be,” Kidman tells me. “That’s why it’s so important to keep changing. We live longer now, if we’re fortunate. So there has to be a place to put all that creative energy.”
^^
And there’s the second season of Big Little Lies, with Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoë Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley, debuting next month on HBO. Kidman says that after 30 years of doing no TV, she was pleasantly surprised by how much she cherished all that time she spent with her co-stars. “To watch Zoë and Shailene grow up and to see them become women … it’s so nice, and I’ve never had that. I know Laura and Reese feel that, too. We’re all so different, yet we complement each other.” She says the whole cast plans to attend Kravitz’s wedding to actor Karl Glusman. Witherspoon says they all love to tease Kidman about the little “snack bag” she carries around. “It’s very idiosyncratic snacks. We always make fun of her ‘old lady’ hard candies”—always butterscotch and peppermint.
“Nicole and I talk about this often. I’d been in a show with maybe one other woman, but never five female leads,” says Witherspoon. “I never even had that many conversations on-screen with women who had the same size part as me. It’s pretty amazing to get to work with this group. I feel like it’s a singular experience I’ll never have again.’”
Meryl Streep says that camaraderie is why she didn’t hesitate when the call came to join the cast for the second season. “The fans wanted more, I wanted more. I signed on without even knowing what the part was because I had such confidence in this group and just how smart they all are and how high the bar was going to be.”
Kidman nods to the prototypical happy ensemble. “Look at the Friends cast, they spent all that time together—they’re different because there are no men in our equation. I mean, there are, but they’re not on the group chat, let’s put it that way.”
Wait. Nicole, Reese, Laura, Zoë, and Shailene have a group chat?! What about Meryl?!
“Yes,” says Kidman. “And she’s very funny.”
Witherspoon describes the ultimate girls’ night. “Can you imagine that we got to go to dinner with Meryl every week? And hear her stories!? It’s like years and years of actresses being siloed off, and finally they let us intermingle. You can only imagine the conversations that we had. It was a really amazing experience of sharing our indignities and our triumphs, and just every rainbow of the female experience in our business.”
Big Little Lies, based on the book by Liane Moriarty, is about five women, all mothers, in the affluent Northern California community of Monterey—a tour de force of female complexity in all its beauty and ugliness. Nicole and Reese joined forces with their separate production companies and brought it to life at HBO. “We read it at the same time, and we both wanted it,” Witherspoon tells me, “so instead of going against each other, we got on the phone and decided to partner and to do it together.”
Richard Plepler, then C.E.O. of HBO, recalls, “I remember as the cuts were coming in and the quality of storytelling and the performances—we knew immediately that it was something quite magical.”
Just watching Kidman in the scene where she is alone with the therapist dancing around the semantics of domestic violence is a master class in acting. As directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and written by Kelley with Moriarty, Kidman’s performance went on to receive three best-actress wins—a SAG Award, a Golden Globe, and an Emmy.
When it came time for a second season, no one was contractually obligated, and there was no source material, as the book didn’t have a sequel. As Saari says, “There was an enormous appetite amongst the people watching the show. So we started thinking, ‘We do end the first season with a cliffhanger.…’ This cop is sitting there with the binoculars, there is an open-ended story. So, we went to Liane and asked her if she would write a book.”
That 200-page novella has never been published, and the plot is shrouded in secrecy. Kidman would only relay, “I hope there’s an enormous amount of truth. It’s the aftermath of a death.” Kelley returned to write the teleplay and Andrea Arnold was brought in to direct, with Vallée staying on as a producer. Kidman tells me, “Marc’s still very much the father of the series. His vocabulary was set in the first one and then Andrea got to mine us for different emotions.”
Streep plays Mary Louise, the mother-in-law of Kidman’s Celeste, who comes to town to get to the bottom of the death of her son. Streep tells me about their first day on set together. “Right off the bat she did a scene where she had to do something really, really hard, like waking up out of nothing and going right into sort of a breakdown. She did it over and over and over again, to the point where I thought, Is she being harmed in this process?” says Streep. “I scurried over to the director and I said, ‘Don’t you think you have it?’ I mean, I’ve done this before with other people, because I know what it takes to do that. She was O.K. It’s just like she has a kind of a placid, very quiet reserve that sits on top of this titanic power.”
Streep says this season we will see more of that from Kidman. “I’m in awe of her. She’s like a secret, soft Valkyrie with a spine like steel. She’s very disciplined, but it’s all in protection of a very tender self. You forget,” Streep continues, “that she’s six feet tall, you know? But she is six feet tall, and sometimes she raises all of it up, and it’s … wow. That’s what you see in the end of this series. You see the full height of Nicole.”
Kidman was raised by intellectuals: her mother, Janelle, a nursing instructor in Sydney, and her father, Antony Kidman, a biochemist, clinical psychologist, and author. Her father died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 2014, and the pain of that loss is still acute with his eldest daughter.
Kidman and her younger sister, Antonia, were reared on conversations about politics and philosophy every night at dinner. From an early age they were taught to think for themselves, to question, and, most important, to give back. “My mom always told us to ‘get a cause!’ ” Kidman got several.
In 2006, she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for U.N. Women. Last year, she donated $500,000 to support the U.N. Trust to End Violence Against Women.
“With Big Little Lies and the role of Celeste, she took on an additional role—working with advocates and survivors,” says Esta Soler, who runs the non-profit Futures Without Violence. “Two days after winning the Emmy she came to San Francisco and stood with survivors and advocates to promote prevention and education.”
Kidman takes the lessons into her own home, though she concedes it’s a challenge. “I was talking to Sunday about there being little girls in different parts of this world who don’t own their bodies. A man owns their body. Her eyes were like ‘What?’ We’re trying to educate about those things. But it’s giving the information gently, and then guiding.”
Jonathan Berek, currently of Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, first met Kidman 28 years ago, when he was at U.C.L.A. At the time, Kidman’s mother, Janelle, was in the midst of breast-cancer treatment. “I credit Nic with being the catalyst that created Stanford Women’s Cancer Center: Under One Umbrella. It was just our 10th anniversary, and Keith performed. We raised three and a half million dollars, which brings our total for the fund-raising at about $52 million.”
Back home in Australia, where the family manages to spend time at least twice a year, her involvement with the Sydney Children’s Hospital is well known. She buys holiday presents every year for the staff and the children and never misses an opportunity to visit. “The dedication Nicole pays to her acting is mirrored in her dedication to sick kids,” says Vanessa Johnston, head of communications for the children’s hospital. “On a recent visit, I witnessed her steal a moment with Keith, where they both shed a tear before continuing.”
Kidman finds herself crying a lot these days. She has a strong belief in God and isn’t afraid to say it out loud. “A lot of my friends tease me.” The Kidman-Urbans go to church as a family. “That’s how we are raising our children. Keith has his own beliefs but he comes, too. I had a very Catholic grandmother, and I was raised praying, so that had massive impact. I wouldn’t say it’s absolutism, there’s constant questioning—I’m a willful, feisty girl. For me it’s very important that I don’t have judgment. My dad would always say, ‘Tolerance is the most important thing.’”
After I descend the hill from my turn behind the tree I ask Kidman why she finds herself frequently on the verge of tears. “Because, Krista. Life!” Like most people at the midcentury mark, she has considered her own mortality. “I’m far more raw and honest now, because before I used to be so scared. So now I’m just like, ‘What the hell. Share, share ideas, share.’ And it’s not safe to do that sometimes, because you’re suddenly exposed. But at the same time it makes you feel closer to people.”
Then I see the owl. Kidman has the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. We both whip out our phones to get a picture. Kidman, in another mortal moment, can’t get hers to work. I snap one, but the bird is so well camouflaged, it just looks like part of the tree in the photo. We stop, put our phones away, and take in this beautiful creature in this beautiful place and breathe in our gratitude. After all, I got to spend the afternoon with a unicorn, and we both got to see the owl.
source: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/04/nicole-kidman-cover-story?verso=true
And there’s the second season of Big Little Lies, with Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoë Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley, debuting next month on HBO. Kidman says that after 30 years of doing no TV, she was pleasantly surprised by how much she cherished all that time she spent with her co-stars. “To watch Zoë and Shailene grow up and to see them become women … it’s so nice, and I’ve never had that. I know Laura and Reese feel that, too. We’re all so different, yet we complement each other.” She says the whole cast plans to attend Kravitz’s wedding to actor Karl Glusman. Witherspoon says they all love to tease Kidman about the little “snack bag” she carries around. “It’s very idiosyncratic snacks. We always make fun of her ‘old lady’ hard candies”—always butterscotch and peppermint.
“Nicole and I talk about this often. I’d been in a show with maybe one other woman, but never five female leads,” says Witherspoon. “I never even had that many conversations on-screen with women who had the same size part as me. It’s pretty amazing to get to work with this group. I feel like it’s a singular experience I’ll never have again.’”
Meryl Streep says that camaraderie is why she didn’t hesitate when the call came to join the cast for the second season. “The fans wanted more, I wanted more. I signed on without even knowing what the part was because I had such confidence in this group and just how smart they all are and how high the bar was going to be.”
Kidman nods to the prototypical happy ensemble. “Look at the Friends cast, they spent all that time together—they’re different because there are no men in our equation. I mean, there are, but they’re not on the group chat, let’s put it that way.”
Wait. Nicole, Reese, Laura, Zoë, and Shailene have a group chat?! What about Meryl?!
“Yes,” says Kidman. “And she’s very funny.”
Witherspoon describes the ultimate girls’ night. “Can you imagine that we got to go to dinner with Meryl every week? And hear her stories!? It’s like years and years of actresses being siloed off, and finally they let us intermingle. You can only imagine the conversations that we had. It was a really amazing experience of sharing our indignities and our triumphs, and just every rainbow of the female experience in our business.”
Big Little Lies, based on the book by Liane Moriarty, is about five women, all mothers, in the affluent Northern California community of Monterey—a tour de force of female complexity in all its beauty and ugliness. Nicole and Reese joined forces with their separate production companies and brought it to life at HBO. “We read it at the same time, and we both wanted it,” Witherspoon tells me, “so instead of going against each other, we got on the phone and decided to partner and to do it together.”
Richard Plepler, then C.E.O. of HBO, recalls, “I remember as the cuts were coming in and the quality of storytelling and the performances—we knew immediately that it was something quite magical.”
Just watching Kidman in the scene where she is alone with the therapist dancing around the semantics of domestic violence is a master class in acting. As directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and written by Kelley with Moriarty, Kidman’s performance went on to receive three best-actress wins—a SAG Award, a Golden Globe, and an Emmy.
When it came time for a second season, no one was contractually obligated, and there was no source material, as the book didn’t have a sequel. As Saari says, “There was an enormous appetite amongst the people watching the show. So we started thinking, ‘We do end the first season with a cliffhanger.…’ This cop is sitting there with the binoculars, there is an open-ended story. So, we went to Liane and asked her if she would write a book.”
That 200-page novella has never been published, and the plot is shrouded in secrecy. Kidman would only relay, “I hope there’s an enormous amount of truth. It’s the aftermath of a death.” Kelley returned to write the teleplay and Andrea Arnold was brought in to direct, with Vallée staying on as a producer. Kidman tells me, “Marc’s still very much the father of the series. His vocabulary was set in the first one and then Andrea got to mine us for different emotions.”
Streep plays Mary Louise, the mother-in-law of Kidman’s Celeste, who comes to town to get to the bottom of the death of her son. Streep tells me about their first day on set together. “Right off the bat she did a scene where she had to do something really, really hard, like waking up out of nothing and going right into sort of a breakdown. She did it over and over and over again, to the point where I thought, Is she being harmed in this process?” says Streep. “I scurried over to the director and I said, ‘Don’t you think you have it?’ I mean, I’ve done this before with other people, because I know what it takes to do that. She was O.K. It’s just like she has a kind of a placid, very quiet reserve that sits on top of this titanic power.”
Streep says this season we will see more of that from Kidman. “I’m in awe of her. She’s like a secret, soft Valkyrie with a spine like steel. She’s very disciplined, but it’s all in protection of a very tender self. You forget,” Streep continues, “that she’s six feet tall, you know? But she is six feet tall, and sometimes she raises all of it up, and it’s … wow. That’s what you see in the end of this series. You see the full height of Nicole.”
Kidman was raised by intellectuals: her mother, Janelle, a nursing instructor in Sydney, and her father, Antony Kidman, a biochemist, clinical psychologist, and author. Her father died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 2014, and the pain of that loss is still acute with his eldest daughter.
Kidman and her younger sister, Antonia, were reared on conversations about politics and philosophy every night at dinner. From an early age they were taught to think for themselves, to question, and, most important, to give back. “My mom always told us to ‘get a cause!’ ” Kidman got several.
In 2006, she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for U.N. Women. Last year, she donated $500,000 to support the U.N. Trust to End Violence Against Women.
“With Big Little Lies and the role of Celeste, she took on an additional role—working with advocates and survivors,” says Esta Soler, who runs the non-profit Futures Without Violence. “Two days after winning the Emmy she came to San Francisco and stood with survivors and advocates to promote prevention and education.”
Kidman takes the lessons into her own home, though she concedes it’s a challenge. “I was talking to Sunday about there being little girls in different parts of this world who don’t own their bodies. A man owns their body. Her eyes were like ‘What?’ We’re trying to educate about those things. But it’s giving the information gently, and then guiding.”
Jonathan Berek, currently of Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, first met Kidman 28 years ago, when he was at U.C.L.A. At the time, Kidman’s mother, Janelle, was in the midst of breast-cancer treatment. “I credit Nic with being the catalyst that created Stanford Women’s Cancer Center: Under One Umbrella. It was just our 10th anniversary, and Keith performed. We raised three and a half million dollars, which brings our total for the fund-raising at about $52 million.”
Back home in Australia, where the family manages to spend time at least twice a year, her involvement with the Sydney Children’s Hospital is well known. She buys holiday presents every year for the staff and the children and never misses an opportunity to visit. “The dedication Nicole pays to her acting is mirrored in her dedication to sick kids,” says Vanessa Johnston, head of communications for the children’s hospital. “On a recent visit, I witnessed her steal a moment with Keith, where they both shed a tear before continuing.”
Kidman finds herself crying a lot these days. She has a strong belief in God and isn’t afraid to say it out loud. “A lot of my friends tease me.” The Kidman-Urbans go to church as a family. “That’s how we are raising our children. Keith has his own beliefs but he comes, too. I had a very Catholic grandmother, and I was raised praying, so that had massive impact. I wouldn’t say it’s absolutism, there’s constant questioning—I’m a willful, feisty girl. For me it’s very important that I don’t have judgment. My dad would always say, ‘Tolerance is the most important thing.’”
After I descend the hill from my turn behind the tree I ask Kidman why she finds herself frequently on the verge of tears. “Because, Krista. Life!” Like most people at the midcentury mark, she has considered her own mortality. “I’m far more raw and honest now, because before I used to be so scared. So now I’m just like, ‘What the hell. Share, share ideas, share.’ And it’s not safe to do that sometimes, because you’re suddenly exposed. But at the same time it makes you feel closer to people.”
Then I see the owl. Kidman has the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. We both whip out our phones to get a picture. Kidman, in another mortal moment, can’t get hers to work. I snap one, but the bird is so well camouflaged, it just looks like part of the tree in the photo. We stop, put our phones away, and take in this beautiful creature in this beautiful place and breathe in our gratitude. After all, I got to spend the afternoon with a unicorn, and we both got to see the owl.
source: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/04/nicole-kidman-cover-story?verso=true
'Big Little Lies 2' photocall & press, New York, USA - 27 Apr 2019
source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...sage-Big-Little-Lies-2-premiere-New-York.html
source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...sage-Big-Little-Lies-2-premiere-New-York.html
Nicole Kidman on Coming Home to Keith
"Other people are off doing things like having a girls’ weekend. I don’t have that because I go home. I want to be with my children and my husband."
For our June cover, InStyle editor-in-chief Laura Brown sat down with the five stars of Big Little Lies to hear what they had to say about their hit series, their lives, and their relationships with each other. Each interview, like the show itself, touches on love, friendship, struggle, and ambition — which these women have in spades.
LAURA BROWN: I wanted to talk to all of you about ambition because you all metabolize it differently. How does it apply to you?
NICOLE KIDMAN: Gosh, I always align it with passion because if you’re passionate, then that’s the pull. I have an enormous passion for my art, and there’s a wonderful blossoming in terms of being able to produce as well. It’s just a beautiful thing to be in a position to say to someone, “There’s this great role here,” or “I read this book, and I think we can get this produced for you.” I love having my artistic path, and then my other passion is my family. That’s probably all I need in my life.
LB: That’s dedication.
NK: Other people are off doing things like having a girls’ weekend. I don’t have that because I go home. I want to be with my children and my husband [singer-songwriter Keith Urban]. I will sort of get lost in a character or whatever I’m doing, but I’m constantly working to keep that balance.
LB: How much sleep do you get a night?
NK: Eight hours. I go to bed early, and when I do go out [for work], I leave early.
LB: You leave early and go home?
NK: Yes. I’m an introvert, so my nature is very quiet, and I prefer being home. I love my work, and I can push through in different places and explore things, but if you look at my Myers-Briggs [personality] test, yes, I definitely qualify as an introvert. I’m deeply sensitive, so my ability to handle an enormous amount of exterior stress or toxicity … I know when I’m in the wrong place, and I go, and I leave. My home is very nourishing.
LB: What’s the first thing you do after an event?
NK: I go home to hug my kids. Literally, I’ll go in and snuggle them. They’ll always be waiting up. I’ll hug my husband too. The greatest thing our family priest told us very early on in our marriage was, “Always kiss hello and kiss goodbye.” It just keeps you connected.
LB: You guys are a very protective unit.
NK: Very. We love to have dinners with our friends or go to a brunch with our kids, but in terms of the work-versus-life part of it, there definitely is a sense of knowing what our real life is.
LB: You’re so driven. How do you make decisions on whether to take a job or not?
NK: I’ve passed on 90 percent of things.
LB: Yeah, because you’re offered 1,000 things.
NK: There have been times when I’ve been offered nothing, and there have been times when there is an enormous number of possibilities. But it’s always about balance. There’ll be people who are relying on me to do things for them, and — this is the other part of being a working mother — I can’t let them down. It becomes about how, as a family, does it work out for us to be in a good place? And right now the strength of our family is being together.
^^
LB: How do you do it when you and Keith have careers that take you all over and you have two girls?
NK: We’re just a very close family. We put the time in, and there’s no taking that for granted. I’m constantly learning from them. They teach me about me. Parenting is about learning who they are, not making them what you want them to be, and letting them find their way and then supporting them. It’s rigorous — rigorous truth, rigorous consciousness. You’re constantly looking at yourself so you’re not placing these expectations on a child. But, I mean, I’m no parenting guru. I’m just walking the path of everyone else, but it is extraordinarily joyful to be able to do it.
LB: You don’t drink much, you take care of yourself, and you do have a real, yes, rigor. How does that help you?
NK: My dad would get us out of bed in the morning and go, “OK, 10 push-ups. Now you’re going to walk to school instead of catch the bus.” That sort of thing. And he would also say we’re all responsible for our own emotional health. I just know what I feel works for me, and maybe it doesn’t work for somebody else. I’m always trying not to go too far in because I can get to the point where I become more isolated. I’ve got to always be pushing out. I’ve got to get out more.
LB: How does physical activity or discipline help?
NK: It’s very important. I love the outdoors. The ocean for me is like a balm; I’d be in there every day if we lived near it. But we live in Nashville, and we love Nashville. We have no water, but we have lots of beautiful trees.
LB: On Big Little Lies, you’re working with women who are at different stages of their careers. What advice would you give to people who are just beginning?
NK: I suppose it’s all individual. Having worked with Shai and Zoë, I always say to them, “I’m here for you. I will answer your questions. I will be available to you for anything you need to know.” I really believe that we can help each other by answering questions and offering insight on whatever we’ve experienced. Take it or leave it. I love being able to do that. I have a lot of younger people around me, and a lot of family members. My sister has six children of different ages. She’s my best friend besides Keith, so I share the deepest parts of who we are and how we raise our children with her. She’s taught me so much.
LB: That’s so rare.
NK: I also have a bunch of girlfriends who have been in my life since I was 3. When I bond, I bond deeply. I get really attached. I have to work on detachment.
LB: How have those anchors helped you through challenges, both private and public?
NK: Oh my god, like, down-on-my-knees kissing-their-feet grateful. My girlfriends’ saving my life is literally true. Like, picking me up off the ground and just being there. When I’ve literally not known what to do, my girlfriends have stepped in, going, “This is what’s going to happen, and we’re organizing this.” I can’t even think, I can’t even operate, and I can’t stop crying, and they’re like, “Don’t worry. We’ve got it covered.” It makes me cry now with gratitude.
LB: What has been the value of having real friendships in your day-to-day workplace on Big Little Lies?
NK: Astounding because I’ve learned so much. We all come in with our own set of skills. There’s great listening and great contributing and great compromise, but actually, in the end, it’s just a great allegiance. The show itself is its own force. We were all like, “No, we’re done,” and it pulled us back in. Reese and I just look at each other and go, “How did we get here?” What a lovely thing to play the women we play and have people feel like they know them. I’ve never had that. I’m not used to that. It feels so good. Makes me feel very close to people.
LB: How wonderful to have something that came from a good place that is made well and then succeeds. Does that redouble your passion to keep doing this?
NK: Each process or artistic venture is unto its own, and the idea of trying to re-create or have an expectation, I think, is dangerous. So many times people can put everything they have into a project and, for whatever reason, it doesn’t end up as part of the zeitgeist. That’s way beyond our control. With Big Little Lies, instead of resisting or fighting it, we went, “OK. There seems to be something that’s just pulling us forward.” These women are great, and to watch their characters unfold even more this season is just fabulous.
LB: How proud are you?
NK: No, I shy away from the word “proud.” It’s not my job to be proud. It’s my job to give. I’m just a conduit for things to happen through. There’s very little of me in there. I’m just contributing to something that exists in its own way. I always try to keep me out of it.
LB: What are you most secure about in terms of your abilities and choices?
NK: My choices are so unusual a lot of the time, but I’m secure in them. I own that. At times people are like, “What?” But it’s been decades of that now for me. I’m probably least secure when there’s a massive expectation with something. That makes me nervous. I like jumping in and trying things. Who knows what will come of it, but when there’s an expectation, I start to wiggle. My choices, when I’m most successful, tend to be my most avant-garde, if that makes sense.
LB: I’ve asked all of you ladies this: What is something about each of your co-stars that you want the world to know? Let’s start with Reese.
NK: There is just an extraordinary amount of power within Reese. She’s very, very powerful and doesn’t have a lot of fear. I would also say loyal. And funny as all get-out. I know that’s what made her famous, but when you can have us all belly-laughing on the set at 1 in the morning, that’s funny.
LB: How about Zoë?
NK: She just exudes this confident sensuality that is beautiful to see. She’s very individual and very, very deep. She’s a thinker. She’s also got really good manners.
LB: And Laura?
NK: She’s lovely. Love-of-the-world kind of thing. She’s superpowerful, and she can get things done. She’s incredibly funny. Laura is also an amazing listener. She’s very much about giving back to the world. Generous.
LB: And Shailene?
NK: Shai is unbelievably real. She’s so warm and so forgiving. She’s of the heavens and of the earth. It feels so nice to be the recipient of their love. All of them.
LB: What would you like them to say about you?
NK: Oh, I don’t mind. I just hope they know how much I love them.
source: https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/nicole-kidman-june-cover
LB: How do you do it when you and Keith have careers that take you all over and you have two girls?
NK: We’re just a very close family. We put the time in, and there’s no taking that for granted. I’m constantly learning from them. They teach me about me. Parenting is about learning who they are, not making them what you want them to be, and letting them find their way and then supporting them. It’s rigorous — rigorous truth, rigorous consciousness. You’re constantly looking at yourself so you’re not placing these expectations on a child. But, I mean, I’m no parenting guru. I’m just walking the path of everyone else, but it is extraordinarily joyful to be able to do it.
LB: You don’t drink much, you take care of yourself, and you do have a real, yes, rigor. How does that help you?
NK: My dad would get us out of bed in the morning and go, “OK, 10 push-ups. Now you’re going to walk to school instead of catch the bus.” That sort of thing. And he would also say we’re all responsible for our own emotional health. I just know what I feel works for me, and maybe it doesn’t work for somebody else. I’m always trying not to go too far in because I can get to the point where I become more isolated. I’ve got to always be pushing out. I’ve got to get out more.
LB: How does physical activity or discipline help?
NK: It’s very important. I love the outdoors. The ocean for me is like a balm; I’d be in there every day if we lived near it. But we live in Nashville, and we love Nashville. We have no water, but we have lots of beautiful trees.
LB: On Big Little Lies, you’re working with women who are at different stages of their careers. What advice would you give to people who are just beginning?
NK: I suppose it’s all individual. Having worked with Shai and Zoë, I always say to them, “I’m here for you. I will answer your questions. I will be available to you for anything you need to know.” I really believe that we can help each other by answering questions and offering insight on whatever we’ve experienced. Take it or leave it. I love being able to do that. I have a lot of younger people around me, and a lot of family members. My sister has six children of different ages. She’s my best friend besides Keith, so I share the deepest parts of who we are and how we raise our children with her. She’s taught me so much.
LB: That’s so rare.
NK: I also have a bunch of girlfriends who have been in my life since I was 3. When I bond, I bond deeply. I get really attached. I have to work on detachment.
LB: How have those anchors helped you through challenges, both private and public?
NK: Oh my god, like, down-on-my-knees kissing-their-feet grateful. My girlfriends’ saving my life is literally true. Like, picking me up off the ground and just being there. When I’ve literally not known what to do, my girlfriends have stepped in, going, “This is what’s going to happen, and we’re organizing this.” I can’t even think, I can’t even operate, and I can’t stop crying, and they’re like, “Don’t worry. We’ve got it covered.” It makes me cry now with gratitude.
LB: What has been the value of having real friendships in your day-to-day workplace on Big Little Lies?
NK: Astounding because I’ve learned so much. We all come in with our own set of skills. There’s great listening and great contributing and great compromise, but actually, in the end, it’s just a great allegiance. The show itself is its own force. We were all like, “No, we’re done,” and it pulled us back in. Reese and I just look at each other and go, “How did we get here?” What a lovely thing to play the women we play and have people feel like they know them. I’ve never had that. I’m not used to that. It feels so good. Makes me feel very close to people.
LB: How wonderful to have something that came from a good place that is made well and then succeeds. Does that redouble your passion to keep doing this?
NK: Each process or artistic venture is unto its own, and the idea of trying to re-create or have an expectation, I think, is dangerous. So many times people can put everything they have into a project and, for whatever reason, it doesn’t end up as part of the zeitgeist. That’s way beyond our control. With Big Little Lies, instead of resisting or fighting it, we went, “OK. There seems to be something that’s just pulling us forward.” These women are great, and to watch their characters unfold even more this season is just fabulous.
LB: How proud are you?
NK: No, I shy away from the word “proud.” It’s not my job to be proud. It’s my job to give. I’m just a conduit for things to happen through. There’s very little of me in there. I’m just contributing to something that exists in its own way. I always try to keep me out of it.
LB: What are you most secure about in terms of your abilities and choices?
NK: My choices are so unusual a lot of the time, but I’m secure in them. I own that. At times people are like, “What?” But it’s been decades of that now for me. I’m probably least secure when there’s a massive expectation with something. That makes me nervous. I like jumping in and trying things. Who knows what will come of it, but when there’s an expectation, I start to wiggle. My choices, when I’m most successful, tend to be my most avant-garde, if that makes sense.
LB: I’ve asked all of you ladies this: What is something about each of your co-stars that you want the world to know? Let’s start with Reese.
NK: There is just an extraordinary amount of power within Reese. She’s very, very powerful and doesn’t have a lot of fear. I would also say loyal. And funny as all get-out. I know that’s what made her famous, but when you can have us all belly-laughing on the set at 1 in the morning, that’s funny.
LB: How about Zoë?
NK: She just exudes this confident sensuality that is beautiful to see. She’s very individual and very, very deep. She’s a thinker. She’s also got really good manners.
LB: And Laura?
NK: She’s lovely. Love-of-the-world kind of thing. She’s superpowerful, and she can get things done. She’s incredibly funny. Laura is also an amazing listener. She’s very much about giving back to the world. Generous.
LB: And Shailene?
NK: Shai is unbelievably real. She’s so warm and so forgiving. She’s of the heavens and of the earth. It feels so nice to be the recipient of their love. All of them.
LB: What would you like them to say about you?
NK: Oh, I don’t mind. I just hope they know how much I love them.
source: https://www.instyle.com/celebrity/nicole-kidman-june-cover
