Nicole Kidman covers the latest issue of L’Officiel magazine, all to promote her new Netflix series, The Perfect Couple. She’s the matriarch of a wealthy family – a family with huge secrets – and there’s a murder. It’s honestly one of my favorite genres: a crime set amongst rich people with secrets. Nicole has reimagined her career over the past decade, mostly because she’s been happy to do miniseries like this, plus Big Little Lies and The Undoing. She went from “art house rut” to something more interesting, dipping in and out of more commercial projects whenever she wants. Some highlights from this interview:
Why she loves to do a miniseries: “I’ve fallen in love with the long format because I like the building of character and I like that they’re limited. You’re not committing a huge amount of time. It’s still got a cinematic feel to it. It’s more like a slow burn than a film, where you only have two hours to tell your story and build a character.”
She’s always traveling, mostly for work: “I’m willing to travel, which a lot of people are not. My kids are willing to travel… maybe less so now [that they’re older], but they’re very interested in the world, too. They say they’ve got so many stamps on their passport, more than most people that are in their eighties. That’s because when they were little, they lived in Morocco [where Kidman filmed Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert] and then we went to the Algerian Desert, where they were riding camels and in the souks for three and a half months. They’ve lived in France, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Asia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, all over.”
Her global education. “It’s given me an empathetic heart and a way into people’s lives that I never would have been exposed to [otherwise]. Documentaries do that; articles do that. I read a lot, too. I don’t think existing only in your own territory is good. Always reaching out to understand, learn, and see different perspectives is how I was raised. That’s probably why I travel. It gives me a greater understanding of how people view their country in relation to the world. I’m teaching my children that service work is something that is not about you. I was reading this really interesting article where this woman gave a kidney, and then her friend didn’t acknowledge it. It caused this whole rift [between them]. When you do things philanthropically, or for a good reason, you don’t expect anything in return. Our duty and purpose in the world is to help others, not to get a pat on the back for it. I really feel strongly about that.”
She finds it difficult to accept awards for humanitarian work. “That feels deeply uncomfortable. There are different times when you have to show up because it means more people will donate or there’ll be more light put on that subject matter. It can’t be self-serving.”
Why she did ‘Batman Forever’: “Everyone’s like, ’Why are you doing that?’ I’m like, ‘Because I get to kiss Batman!’ The thing people don’t understand is, it’s not about the check. A lot of the mainstream big blockbusters that I do are hopefully different.”
She’s highly sensitive: “I obviously feel things really, really, really deeply. My mother would always say, raising me, it was raising a highly sensitive child. Part of my path in life is learning not to be so overly empathetic with people that it destroys me or sabotages me, because I can move into other people’s skin and psyche in a very weird way. It’s almost like a pull. I can physically manifest it and emotionally manifest it. It can be very, very frightening at times.”
She wants to do a pure horror film: “The Aussie one, Talk to Me, did you see that?… There you go. I’ve not done classic horror yet. Hardcore horror. I’m putting it out there, because I watch hardcore horror. I’m a fan of Ti West!”
I honestly think Nicole has done pure horror with The Others. That’s such a creepy ghost story! I also think she would do well with a director like Guillermo del Toro, if it was the right horror/sci-fi story. I couldn’t see in her a gorefest though. Hm. But yeah, she should absolutely get some horror scripts! Stop sending her prestige TV projects, she wants a slasher movie! “The thing people don’t understand is, it’s not about the check.” For Nicole, it’s probably rarely about the check, but for other actors, they will openly do projects for the money or because they simply need a job. I don’t judge those actors. They would love to get to Nicole’s level, where she’s sitting on a stack of art-house projects and TV scripts and more.
Cover courtesy of L’Officiel and photos courtesy of Avalon Red.