HAIR’S TO NICOLE

Is it manely circumstance that makes Kidman a great actress? Sadaf Ahsan

This week, at the premiere of her latest film, Destroyer, Nicole Kidman responded “lightly but gently,” according to L.A. Times critic Mark Olsen, when asked by an audience member if she could rank the film’s wigs amongst the countless others she’s adorned.

“That’s an awful question.” Kidman said. “I am shutting that question down.”

It was a rare, rather exciting moment in Kidman’s usually sunshiney rhetoric. As if she was the Wizard of Oz, advising, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” her dismissal of the question ignited countless new ones. Number one: why? Sure, Destroyer features some heavy subject matter (a morally dubious L.A. cop struggles through her latest mission, as it recalls one that wreaked havoc on her past and changed her life forever). But it also showcases Kidman in an unmistakably greasy, grey and drab wig (words that could also be used to describe the film, but that’s another hairy matter).

Indeed, taking stock of her recent roles, it seems as though Kidman often dons a wig, some far more bountiful than their stringy cousins. It wasn’t always this way, of course. From Dead Calm to Days of Thunder to Far and Away, Kidman’s blaze of fiery, corkscrew curls was her calling card, stealing the spotlight away from beau and frequent co-star Tom Cruise. We saw it braided in Malice, in loose waves in Eyes Wide Shut, and straightened in all its luscious red for Practical Magic.

Kidman played down the attention her hair garnered back in 1989 when she told People, “I don’t have the kind of hair that you can have a hairstyle with.” Perhaps this was when she began considering wigs as a way of life, a more seamless transition into each role.

Exhibit A: 2001’s Moulin Rouge, a classic not just for its stunning set decoration, but also The Look (TM) Kidman delivers throughout. Her hair, thick and resplendent scarlet, is an undeniable wig, serving up as much melodrama as her character.

In The Others and, a decade later, Stoker, she wears stunning, gently ringleted wigs, oozing the tightlywound tension weighing down her characters in the similarly toned horror films. In The Stepford Wives, her hair shifts from a lifeless brown bob to a luxurious, blond mane. For Fur, in which Kidman portrays photographer Diane Arbus, she goes back to brunette, but long and loose this time. She exhudes a similar vibe (and wig) in Margot at the Wedding, The Family Fang and The Railway Man. In each of these roles, Kidman uses her hairpiece to strip herself of her natural glamour — never an easy feat.

Time and again, it’s through her wigs that Kidman enters her roles. The lavish blond denotes class commentary in the romantic epics Australia and Nine, and her kooky character work in The Paperboy and the regality of Grace of Monaco. Sleek and short, and you’ve got a sinister villain in Paddington; bouncy and dated, and you’ve got a mom in Lion; sloppy and unwashed, and you’ve got 1990s white trash in Boy Erased.

When she joined the series Top of the Lake, she did so with a bang, not only with an intense performance, but also a large, billowing saltand-pepper wig that spoke volumes of her character’s frustrations. In How to Talk to Girls at Parties, Kidman sports a white mullet-mohawk combo to play a rockstar. And now, in Destroyer, she takes on the role of a grizzled California cop, whose hairstyle makes a floor mop seem de rigueur.

We’ve seen many an iconic wig in our time, from Julia Roberts’s Pretty Woman bob to Nicolas Cage’s greasy cape in Con Air. For some, it’s more of a garnish than an entrée, while for others, it’s the meat of the performance, a codependent relationship.

Kidman’s history with this acting tool makes it difficult to determine just when the follicular chameleon’s hair is her own. While the soft, straight tendrils she sports in HBO’s Big Little Lies may look incredibly real, they’re absolutely fake — as was confirmed by her precocious child co-star Darby Camp in a Vulture interview.

Camp reminisced, as if having yanked the beard of Santa himself, “One time she let all the kids get on her lap and she wore a wig in the show and she’s like, ‘Oh, guys, do you want to play with my wig or something?’ So we were all testing her wig and playing with it. My mom’s just like, ‘Put down The Nicole Kidman. Don’t touch The Nicole Kidman.’”

God bless The Nicole Kidman and all her variations.