Nicole Kidman received one of British GQ’s “Men of the Year” covers, which I assume makes her their Woman of the Year. It does feel like in the past decade or so, Nicole has completely remade her career. She was the hottest actress around, then she was in a rut for years, but she’s been back and working like she’s broke (she’s not broke). Two things have defined Nicole’s career in her late 40s and 50s: she started producing all of her own projects and she made a pact with herself to work with a female director at least once every other year. Currently, she’s promoting Babygirl, which was directed by Halina Reijn. Nicole wanted to the film because she loved the script though. Some highlights from British GQ:
Babygirl: In Babygirl, “she plays a 50-something tech CEO in the midst of a BDSM-tinged affair with a 20-something intern, features her most vulnerable performance in years. Kidman says making it was even more challenging than 1999’s fabled erotic mystery Eyes Wide Shut. “I’m in the whole film [in Babygirl]. There are so many close-ups. It’s a full stripping of me.”
She hasn’t done a gritty film like ‘Babygirl’ in a while: “I haven’t been the lead of a gritty indie film [in a while], that’s true,. I haven’t done a Birth for a long time.”
Her life changed a lot in the mid-2000s. She started a family with Urban, whom she married in 2006, and had two daughters. “When Moulin Rouge! came out I was DJing at two or three in the morning. I wouldn’t be doing that now. And that’s a choice.”
Wild swings: “I don’t see them as daring, that’s the problem. Not when I read them. I just see them as like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to make this.’ It happened with Birth. The same with [Babygirl], and Eyes Wide Shut. All of them. Dogville.”
Scripts like ‘Babygirl’ rarely get made. “It’s why there’s so few good films. You don’t read ’em. They’re not financed, or they’re not found; they sit on shelves or on people’s computers; they don’t make their way into the world.”
The major landmarks at 57: “Mortality. Connection. Life coming and hitting you. And loss of parents and raising children and marriage and all of the things that go into making you a fully sentient human. I’m in all of those places. So life is, whew. It’s definitely a journey. And it hits you as you get older how it’s a wake up at 3am crying and gasping kind of thing. If you’re in it and not numbing yourself to it. And I’m in it. Fully in it.”
Her version of Method acting: “I’m willing to go to whatever place to make it real and deep and certain things just click and it’s cellular. You can absolutely tell when people are phoning something in. For me, that doesn’t work. I’m not moved by that.” When the camera stops rolling, she doesn’t just get to slip off her costume and walk away. Any negative feelings linger in her subconscious. “I get sick or I get disturbed,” Kidman says. “It penetrates my dreams, I don’t sleep well, I shake, I have all sorts of different physical manifestations from it.”
The meme of Nicole with her arms out, taking in the sun, which many believe was when she signed her divorce papers from Tom Cruise: “Yes [I know the photo]. That was not me; that was from a film, that wasn’t real life. I know that image!” The story that goes with this meme whenever it circulates is that Kidman had just left her lawyer’s office after the dissolution of her first marriage. “That’s not true,” she laughs. “I’ve also seen the one where I’m clapping like that.” She begins to clap as I’ve seen her clap dozens of times in gif form, with her fingers pointed backwards and only her palms meeting. “’Cause I had a massive heavy borrowed ring on and it was really painful, and I was scared of wrecking the jewellery. Ha! There’s always something behind the actual images that go out there, right?”
Her viral AMC ads: “‘Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.’ But I’ll do anything for cinema, so you can meme me as much as you want.”
I’m including the iconic photos of Nicole, which she and the magazine referenced. It was 2001 and she divorced Tom Cruise. I remember when the photos were published and the reason they go viral all the time is because the backstory is true. I mean, I don’t want to call Nicole a liar or anything, but what movie is this supposed to be from? Cite it. This was Nicole’s real life! Just like the iconic photo of Nicole smoking at the Oscar party the year before, where Tom looked like he was bitching her out. Nicole really is an icon, my god.
“The Declaration of Independence”? Oh, you mean Nicole Kidman finalizing her divorce in 2001? pic.twitter.com/Y5rD0GJ6ZP
— Tom Zohar (@TomZohar) July 4, 2023
the beauty that lies within nicole kidman smoking a cigarette and completely ignoring tom cruise pic.twitter.com/W1sUeqI4bU
— gabriela (@hollygolightIy) October 17, 2019
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of British GQ.