WAS NICOLE’S BIG LITTLE LIP LOCK OUT OF LINE?
Her clinch with Big Little Lies co-star Alexander Skarsgård at the Emmys last week sent Twitter into meltdown. But was Nicole Kidman’s celebratory kiss really so outrageous? Two writers thrash it out…
There’s nothing more fabulous than a woman who’s confident in herself. That was what I thought when I saw Nicole Kidman at the Emmys, looking hot as hell, planting a smacker right on the lips of co-star Alexander Skarsgård. (Also, having interviewed Skarsgård, I can empathise: I know how good he smells.)
That Nicole was standing right beside her husband, Keith Urban, as she went in for a smooch with the Scandi only seemed more magnificent. Did I find it inappropriate? Or worry for poor Keith? No! I thought it proved the strength of their relationship.
If a bit of smooching between friends is unacceptable, then I’m out of line every week. I can’t think of many great nights with my mates that didn’t feature messy dance-floor kissing.
Right now I’m single, but I felt the same in relationships. I don’t begrudge my partners physical closeness with their friends. I’d worry far more about someone who wasn’t emotionally expressive. When my last boyfriend and I went to a wedding and I spotted him drunkenly carrying a woman across the lawn in a fireman’s lift, my only response was, ‘How brilliant! He’s getting on so well with my friends!’ Are other people’s relationships really so fragile they worry about such things?
To me, a committed relationship isn’t rocked by drunken snogs, especially not celebratory kisses with friends – they’re forged on a deeper connection. They are about collaborating on a life. And I’m not the only one. Some of my married friends are equally unperturbed by the odd snog. Their rule is: don’t ask, don’t tell.
In Keith’s case, why would he worry about a kiss happening right in front of him? I thought he looked thrilled! If anything, Nicole’s ease shows how comfortable she is with him. Besides, someone actually having an affair is never so blatant. I asked my husband Charlie if he’d care if I’d done as Nicole did, and face-cupped Tarzan in a style reminiscent of our wedding-day first kiss. ‘Do it, I wouldn’t care!’ he replied insouciantly. Which is lucky, because when I interviewed Mr Skarsgård a few years ago, I was planning to climb that man like a tree. (All I actually got was a hug.)
But what if ‘Alex’ was my colleague – not just an actor I once met – someone I spent a lot of time with, probably more time than I actually spent with my husband? I bet Charlie would be peeved if we celebrated winning the pub quiz with a snog. Because if it was the other way around, the girl in question would probably be getting my fist, not his lips, in the kisser.
As much as I play at being the cool girl in a committed, trusting relationship – out-flirting each other at parties and discussing which celebrities we’d theoretically allow a hall pass for – I wouldn’t be cool with it in real life. I’d be apoplectic. This isn’t even factoring in the bond Nicole and Alex must share after filming some of the most intense sexual scenes of recent years (which Keith must have watched). Does that mean he’s seen it all and is immune to jealousy? My husband used to work at a men’s magazine where he was often surrounded by glamour models, and I failed miserably at Keith’s calm detachment. And they weren’t kissing him.
Even now his colleagues are fully clothed, if my husband had been slaving over a presentation with a co-worker and celebrated with a faceclenching kiss, at the very least I’d think it odd. It would play on my mind that there was a fizz of chemistry that might light like a Bunsen burner if I wasn’t in the next seat watching awkwardly.
So, yeah, call me possessive, call me a hypocrite who’d trust myself to kiss without consequences yet not allow my husband the same courtesy. But don’t pretend it wouldn’t at least cross your mind that it meant something. Especially if their colleague’s as hot as Nicole’s.