I last spoke with Nicole Kidman “Sunday Morning” several years ago. Not much has happened since then. I’m just kidding! Kidman is experiencing a “golden age” following her Emmy Award-winning role in the TV series “Big Little Lies.”
To name a few of her recent projects: the television series “The Perfect Couple” co-starring Liev Schreiber; and “Special Ops: Lioness” with Zoe Saldaña.
Is the feeling that time is passing part of the reason for her prolific production? “Yes, probably,” Kidman said.
She’s still the better half of country great Keith Urban. But the thing Kidman is getting the most attention these days is a movie coming out this Christmas… and what a movie it is. In Babygirl, Kidman plays a happy, married, successful executive who is dissatisfied in some ways, so she takes on a handsome intern (Harris Dickinson, from Triangle of Sadness) who knows how to temper her own desires.
She asked: “Was there ever a point where you thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can do this’?”
“Yes, yes. A lot of it is endurance, because I am in every frame of the film,” she replied.
To watch a trailer for “Babygirl,” click the video player below:
Kidman is committed to working a lot with female directors, and in Halina Reijn’s hands, the film is intense and relentless.
“Do you think part of what makes you do your job is—” I asked.
“strange?” Kidman offered.
“Hmm…weird, yeah, this is where I was going?”
“You can He says He-she!”
“Do you think part of what makes you a good actor is that ability to feel Hardly?
“Maybe the thing I have is the ability to feel, truly “I feel,” Kidman said. “I go to hospitals. Keith and I will work wherever we go… He’ll bring his guitar and we’ll go, you know, to oncology units. And I don’t have to internalize someone else’s feelings.”
“Because that’s your tendency? That’s what you tend to do?”
“Yes. And Keith always said, ‘You’re like a raw egg that I have to shell.’
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Kidman doesn’t look that weak, but when she’s not a global star, she’s quite the homebody. In fact, the daily routine at her home in Nashville, with Keith and their two daughters, might look a lot like yours. “We have breakfast together every morning, so even if I’m working, I’m awake. And then dinner. I also like to get dressed and come home.
“Are you a homebody?”
“Yes, I wear my bed socks. But we have a rule: You can’t wear your pajamas before 5:00 p.m.
“Why do you have this rule?”
“Because otherwise, you could get into it too early. Not a good thing!”
But there were moments, Kidman says, when she seriously considered becoming a full-time stay-at-home mom and giving up acting altogether. She says that in 2008, after she gave birth to her daughter, Sunday, “I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I’m pretty much done now.'” ‘. Keep your finger in it. And I say, ‘No, no. I’m done now. I’m done.’ “Just listen to me I guess, keep moving forward. I’m not saying you have to do it to the level you’ve been doing it, but I’m not going to give it up completely,” she said.
After that, Kidman went on to do some of the best work of her career, and last April she received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute. Her friend Meryl Streep took the honors that night, and spoke of Nicole: “The hardest part is when you’re faced with, or when you’re acting with someone else who’s also really, really, really, really, really great. That’s hard for me!”
Kidman said the honor seemed strange. “Because at first I was like, ‘I’m not sure I want this right now.’ Does this mean it’s over?
But for Kidman, who already received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Babygirl, this year’s stratospheric heights were tempered by a devastating loss: her mother Janelli died in September at the age of 84, just as Kidman was on her way to the Venice Film Festival To show the movie “Babygirl”.
Kidman asked: “Did you share with her what it was about?”
“Yes. She knew,” she answered. “She knew everything.” “Perhaps this is the greatest loss, to lose the person who knows everything, and who loves you anyway. I love when people say, “There are no limits to your grief.” You don’t have to have a time limit for this. You don’t have to be better this time.’ So, you are allowed to continually let it pass in waves. … People say, ‘Oh, well, whatever.’ But she is my mother and my life, and I am allowed to deal with her and grieve the way I want.
“Yes, there is no time limit. It comes in waves.”
“Yes, that’s weird.”
“And you never know when it’s going to strike.”
“Yes, it’s like the road is different,” Kidman said. “When my father died – and I think it’s good to talk about all that, because a lot of people in the world are going through it – but it’s just a whole other thing, both parents are gone. Just like ‘Whoa. Perfect. Great.'”
“But that’s okay. I appreciate you sharing that. Because, like I said, people—”
“Move quickly!” Kidman laughed. “Now I feel embarrassed!”
Kidman may keep her emotions close at hand, but that’s not a bad thing: In the same face where you might see torrents of anger and sadness, you can just as easily see happiness and hope.
I asked her: “Do you feel like this is the moment – you know, all these awards and festivals and so many hit TV series – do you feel like you are in this moment right now?”
“No,” Kidman replied. “I’m just me. But I think it’s because I’ve been through so many years of so many different things happening and I’m so aware of where I am, and I’m so awake. I’m in the world. I’m curious, and grateful, and amazed. I love the word ‘wonder,’ because I still have So much wonder, so much excitement about what’s to come.
Watch an extended interview with Nicole Kidman:
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The story is produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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