Dense, complex female experience

you’ve got a teenage daughter to another man and a small child with your new husband?’’ Kidman says.

Kidman hopes there is a powerful take-away for the audience. ‘‘Making people think, which is why we also say we hope people watch this show together,’’ she says.

‘‘The one thing you lose when you do TV is you don’t have that collective group watching something together and I’m still a huge fan of that,’’ she adds. ‘‘I love people coming together so they can then talk about it, laugh together, bond together, and create conversation.’’

In terms of what that message contains, however, Kidman is unwilling to say.

‘‘Artistically, I’m always so reluctant to give people what they should feel or think,’’ she says. ‘‘Because how it’s interpreted is incredibly personal. And, so, I’m not sure about the message. I want people [to] decide what they bring from it.

‘‘The essence of it, for us, is female friendship, the camaraderie of women, the power of women when they unite and the way in which we protect each other, which is why you’ve got to see the full seven hours,’’ Kidman adds.

And there was, Kidman adds, an emotional price to be paid.

‘‘I would go home… and I would cry,’’ she says. ‘‘It was really tough and I wanted it to be as authentic and as real as it could be. There is one particular storyline which I think is incredibly complicated but I do think the way David and Jean-Marc [director Vallee] mapped it is very, very real.’’

While Papandrea is a career producer, Witherspoon and Kidman, who co-produce the series, are both actors. And when actors choose to bring something to the screen, Witherspoon says, they do so as passionate storytellers.

‘‘It’s a unique thing to have so many talented women collaborating on something that they feel is important,’’ Witherspoon says.

‘‘And, I think, we’re at this critical place where tides are changing, conversations are changing, audiences are demanding different content because they want to see themselves reflected on film.

‘‘And, not the fairytale version of themselves,’’ Witherspoon adds. ‘‘The real version of themselves. They crave reality, and there’s so much psychically about processing with people you know and recognise.’’

The honesty and integrity of the piece, Kidman weighs in, lies in the fact that none of these women is what she first appears to be.

‘‘They set out one way, and then they unravel, and you take away some of their barriers, and the things that they’re protecting themselves with,’’ she says.

‘‘All of them are not what they appear to be at first, and that’s what I love as well.’’ - Fairfax

9.30pm, Thursdays, Prime, from September 21.