NICOLE AND REESE FINALLY GET REAL IN KILLER SERIES
Catfights, dark secrets and a dead body – the seemingly perfect lives of five glamorous mothers unravel in new TV thriller Big Little Lies. Here Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon tell why their show will strike a chord with us all
The scene is the picture-perfect California coastal town of Monterey, where bronzed fiveyear-olds are being dropped off at their exclusive primary school by slender mothers with fabulous hair and designer outfits. The women coo compliments at each other before heading back to their stunning sea-view homes where, at the end of the day, their handsome husbands will return and pour a restorative glass of wine as the waves crash against the shore in the background.
Paradise? Well, not quite. The new drama series Big Little Lies, based on the novel by bestselling Australian writer Liane Moriarty and boasting an A-list cast including Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, begins with a brutal murder at a school fundraiser. Tantalisingly we don’t know the identity of the victim, but as the police investigation unfolds over seven episodes we learn more of the shady, sometimes shocking, secrets of the town’s apparently yummy mummies.
The show focuses on five women and their families. Leader of the pack is Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese), a whirlwind of energy and good intentions that sometimes go awry, who’s married to her second husband, stable, low-key Ed (Adam Scott). Madeline’s best friend, or so it seems, is Celeste Wright (Nicole), a tall, beautiful retired lawyer who’s apparently happily married to handsome businessman Perry (Alexander Skarsgard).
Then there are high-powered executives Renata Klein (Laura Dern) and her husband Gordon (Jeffrey Nordling), and sweetnatured yoga instructor Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz, daughter of musician Lenny), who’s married to Madeline’s ex, Nathan (James Tupper). Completing the fivesome is the mysterious and conspicuously unglamorous single mum Jane (Shailene Woodley), a new arrival in town. All have young children, and when one of their little darlings is accused of hitting another at school the battle lines are drawn and a chain of events is set in motion that will end in disaster.
The series is a joint production for HBO made by both Nicole and Reese’s companies, and with women squarely at the centre of the story, Reese says it comes not a moment too soon. ‘I realised about four or five years ago that I was seeing a complete lack of interesting characters for women on screen and it really bothered me,’ she tells me when I meet the cast in Los Angeles. ‘I was seeing fantastic actresses all clamouring for one horrible part as The Wife or The Girlfriend, and I thought: “These women have so much more to offer.” We are 50 per cent of the population after all, so we should be telling 50 per cent of the stories.’
Her solution was to start her own production company, Pacific Standard, in 2012, which has already given us the feature films Gone Girl with Rosamund Pike and Wild, the 2014 story of survival and self-discovery for which Reese herself won an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. ‘I thought: “Well, if no one else is going to develop this material, I’ll do it myself,”’ she says. ‘So I have been. I’m calling authors of books that interest me. I’m calling heads of studios and getting things set up. I’m paying for projects that interest me. It’s time for us women to see our real lives portrayed.’
She says that when she read the novel she immediately thought of Nicole – who’s a good friend and who also owns her own production company, Blossom Films – for both co-star and co-producer, and sent her a copy of the book. ‘I read it overnight,’ says Nicole. ‘I couldn’t put it down. I thought: “If this could be made it would be a great opportunity for five women.” It’s nice to be able to read a book and say to its author: “Listen, I think this could be a film.” And because I was in Sydney, where Liane lives, I was able to go and have coffee with her. I said: “If you let Reese and me option the book, I promise we’ll get it made.” She said: “I’ll give you the rights as long as you promise to play Celeste.” So she cast it as well as writing it!
‘Reese and I were already very good friends. We have beach houses next door to each other, and Laura is also a friend now. A lot of the time while we were filming we’d say: “OK, what are you doing after the shoot? Let’s go and have dinner.” We’d have these incredible dinners where we’d share stories and talk about our lives and help each other.’
Nicole particularly appreciated the off-screen camaraderie because her days on set could be gruelling – Celeste’s outwardly ideal marriage hides the dark shadow of domestic violence. ‘Those scenes were tough,’ she says. ‘You couldn’t put stunt people in to do those things, they had to be very authentic and real. I’d go home and I’d be bruised all over because I threw myself into it. There were nights when I’d go home and sit in the bath and cry.’
The bruises were worth it though, because, as a United Nations Women’s Goodwill Ambassador with a special focus on violence, it was an opportunity for her to shed a light on a dark topic. ‘Anything that unveils this and starts a conversation about it can only help. I’m only speaking for Celeste here, because every relationship is different, but she doesn’t want to confront the truth because she thinks it would shatter everything. She protects her husband, primarily because she thinks she’s protecting the family. She keeps the secret because she’s ashamed. That’s a huge underlying factor for a lot of people in this situation.’
Standing in occasional comic contrast to Celeste is Reese’s Madeline. ‘We all know someone who talks and talks but doesn’t
‘At night I’d go home and sit in the bath and cry’ Nicole Kidman
listen and isn’t really conscious of what she’s saying,’ says Reese. ‘I wasn’t sure I was going to play her at first. We got David Kelley, who created Ally McBeal and LA Law, to write the script and he said: “Well, you’re obviously Madeline!” I said, “Excuse me?” I wasn’t at all sure that was a compliment, but I had fun in the end.’
None of the characters are intrinsically bad she says. ‘They’re real-life characters of different ages. They’re not bad, they’re not good, they’re just who they are. In my time I’ve been every single woman in this drama. I’ve been married, I’ve been divorced, I’ve been a single mum, I’ve had children with one husband and another child with a second. So I really related to each character.’
Inevitably with five strong women – and a murder mystery to boot – there’ll be on-screen conflict. But Zoe Kravitz is quick to point out that these conflicts are far removed from the old-fashioned Dynasty-style catfights. ‘With the old idea of a catfight you didn’t really care who was fighting, you just wanted to see them pull each other’s hair, scratch out their earrings or whatever. We wanted to explore what’s really going on with these women. There are
‘It’s time us women saw our real lives portrayed’ Reese Witherspoon
certainly moments that could be considered catfights in this show – but the reason they’re fighting is more important than the fight itself.’
One characteristic all five women have in common is an overpowering desire to see their children succeed at all costs. For Laura Dern, who grew up in ultracompetitive Los Angeles and whose parents were actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, this carried echoes of her own childhood. ‘Not from my own parents, who were very compassionate,’ she says, ‘but it was definitely part of the culture when I was a child. Parents wanted their kids to go to a good school, as if that meant they were guaranteed to turn out OK. I still remember driving up under the arch of my school gates and there was a sign saying: “College begins at two!” There’s a lot of that still out there.’
For Shailene Woodley, another interesting element of the plot is the question of parental discipline. ‘There’s a phenomenon that’s developed where parents are afraid of their children. They’re afraid of their four-year-old because their four-year-old can say: “I don’t want to go to bed,” and the mother has no control and doesn’t know what to do. They want to be a friend rather than a parent.’
None of these problems applied to the child actors on the show though. ‘I got super-lucky because the boy who plays my son happens to be a little genius brainchild and was amazing to work with,’ says Shailene. ‘They were all really great kids and, luckily for us, none of them had nightmare stage parents either – all the parents were grounded individuals.’
At 25, Shailene’s the youngest of the main cast, but she and 28-yearold Zoe – already old friends from the Divergent movies – got plenty of mutual respect from their more experienced co-stars. ‘We all told each other everything,’ says Laura Dern. ‘We are now the holders of each other’s secrets.’
Big Little Lies, Sky Atlantic, Monday, 9pm.