NICOLE KIDMAN
We know her as the acclaimed actor and producer who has had an extraordinary career both in front and behind the camera, with a slew of awards to her name. In this MiNDFOOD exclusive interview, Nicole Kidman shares with us what life is really like when th
Nicole Kidman is enjoying the most successful time of her career, both behind and in front of the camera.
If you ever have occasion to meet Nicole Kidman, be prepared for the unexpected. Lauded for her signature porcelain glow, hers is a celebrated visage often described as glacial, even other-worldly. This has led to myriad misconceptions about her personality – a frequent assumption being that in person she can be aloof and stand- offish. But within seconds of talking with her, it’s obvious that any perceived ‘ice queen’ persona couldn’t be more inaccurate. Instead, there’s a beaming Oscar winner trying to give me a hug.
“I’m a hugger,” she smiles, shrugging helplessly. “I know it’s probably not always the right [thing] to do when I meet people, but I try and hug.” And she does. Often.
Most movie stars of her stature prefer to keep their distance, literally. For occasions when they’re confronted by enthusiastic admirers invading their personal space, their publicist can usually be relied upon to carry a bottle of hand sanitiser. But Kidman’s ‘getting physical’ ethos is an attempt to extinguish the barrier between star and everyone else. It brings to mind the derogatory term ‘civilian’, coined by Liz Hurley to describe noncelebrities. In contrast, Kidman goes to great efforts to level the playing field. “You can break down a lot of things by being tactile,” she explains.
Kidman is one of Hollywood’s most prolific actors, and sometimes appears in as many as four projects a year. So I find myself in front of her (and therefore being hugged) on a regular basis, as we talk about each project. I note it’s impossible to come up with a question she hasn’t addressed 1000 times.
“That’s awful that you think you’ve asked me everything!” she says with a laugh. “Gosh, I need to get a little bit of controversy happening!” No stranger to controversy (she was, of course, Mrs Tom Cruise), Kidman is no doubt relieved that domestic life in Nashville with her husband of 12 years, Keith Urban – with whom she’s raising their two daughters, Sunday Rose, 10, and Faith Margaret, 7 – is happily “boring”.
As far as Kidman is concerned, she and Urban are old news within their local community. “Well, Keith has lived in Nashville for 30 years and I have been there now for 12 years, so we’re just very much a part of it.” (It’s not the first time Kidman relocated for love. In 1990, she moved from Sydney to Los Angeles for Tom Cruise.) “Keith and I actually have a very normal life. We say it over and over again and people always go, ‘Yeah, right’,” she says, rolling her eyes. “But we really do. We work hard for it and we protect it.”
Our conversation turns to her eclectic artistic choices in recent years, which includes her Emmyaward winning turn as an abused wife in Big Little Lies, and her role as the tightly-wound mother of a gay son undergoing conversion therapy (at the insistence of her preacher husband, played by Russell Crowe) in Boy Erased.
She also stars in the upcoming crime drama, Destroyer. Directed by Karyn Kusama, Kidman plays an LAPD cop who takes the audience on
“Keith and I have a very normal life. We really do. We work hard for it and we protect it.”
a disturbing journey as she grapples with her own demons and tracks down an old nemesis.
Kidman can always be relied upon to muck in on a set. Not only is she unafraid of difficult or gruelling work, but she seems to actually relish going places where there is no room for glamour and beauty.
“I have become more secure in my own identity and who I am, what I stand for, and what I believe in. It probably shows in my own confidence in the last five or six years of my life, where I have gone, ‘Oh, okay, I really have a strong sense of who I am’. That’s also allowed me to make artistic choices where I go, ‘Yeah. I am going to stand up, put my hand up and say, this is what I believe in and this is what I am going to speak out about and speak up for’. And with women’s rights, obviously I have done an enormous amount of work over the last two decades, but only recently has that really started to be heard.”
Case in point, Kidman penned a 2017 essay for Porter magazine in which she wrote: “It never occurred to me that I should be at a disadvantage because I was born a girl. The idea that women and men are equal is part of my DNA. I was raised by a strong feminist mother and a fully supportive father.” Unsurprisingly, she works as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, to shine a light on domestic abuse and sexual harassment against women.
Perhaps this propensity for standing up for unheard women and telling their stories inspired the role she is preparing for as former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson. Carlson filed a lawsuit of David and Goliath proportions in 2016 when she sued Roger Ailes, former chairman and CEO of Fox News and Fox TV stations, for sexual harassment.
“I’m only doing a few days on it. I’m supporting Charlize [Theron] and Margot [Robbie] actually,” she says. Theron plays Megyn Kelly, another former Fox presenter, and is also a producer. Robbie plays an associate producer in this still-untitled drama.
“I am contributing to the film because I thought it was a really important subject,” she says. “I am always about throwing my weight out to other women who are producing or directing, which was also the case with Destroyer.” She leans forward to me. “You know the crew on Destroyer was 99 percent female!” she declares triumphantly.
But next up, Kidman enters the superhero world in Aquaman, playing Queen Atlanna. It is not, she reminds me, her first foray into the field.
“Hey, what about Batman?” she laughs. In 1995, she starred in Batman Forever as caped crusader Val Kilmer’s love interest. “But I was not in a suit or anything,” she concedes. “I was a normal person.”
She lights up when she talks about her role as a comic-book queen/aquatic warrior. “It was fun!” she laughs. “And I love that it’s a film my kids can see,” she says, referring to her younger offspring with Urban. “They were on the set so they’re really excited to see the film.” And what of her less childfriendly fare, much of a dark sexual nature, including To Die For (1995), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Birth (2004) and The Paperboy (2012)?
“I will tell them when they’re older that they can see those other films sitting next to me and I will fast-forward. But for now, they are not interested in my work, other than Aquaman,” she smiles.
Kidman has a more complicated relationship with her other two children – Connor, 23, and Isabella Jane, 25 – whom she adopted with her first husband, Tom Cruise. In short, Kidman was raised Catholic while her children are Scientologists. But she accepts them wholeheartedly. “They have made choices to be Scientologists and, as a mother, it’s my job to love them, to always offer unconditional love, no matter what.”
How does her parenting style raising Sunday Rose and Faith differ from hers with Connor and Isabella?
“I think there’s a way of being in the world as a mother when you are young and there is a way of being in the world as an older mother.”
She pauses. “When you’re in your early 20s you’re also thinking, ‘I want to have a career, I want to do this or that’. I think as you get older, you get more aware of patience and time and how to balance time. There is also a thing when you are young and you are like, ‘Yeah, I can do it all! Let’s go!’ And that’s not always the case.”
Does she think Faith and Sunday will follow either of their parents’ creative pursuits?
“I still feel like I can tell my mother anything, which is a great thing.”
She cracks up laughing. “Keith just sent me a video of Faith playing violin.” She leans in. “I think I must have watched it 20 times. I called him and I said, ‘She’s fantastic!’” she roars, proudly. “And he’s like, ‘She’s getting better!’”
But at this point, she doesn’t take it seriously. “They are seven and 10 years old. They don’t know yet want they want to do. The world is their oyster, and I mean, a child changes on a whim, right? Before I decided to be an actress, I wanted to be an astronaut, and before that, a ballet dancer,” she laughs.
The only recent stumbling block in her seemingly idyllic world was the sudden death of her father, Antony, in 2014. She and her younger sister, Antonia, remain very close to their mother, Janelle, a former nursing instructor, who still resides in Sydney.
Growing up, Nicole and Antonia enjoyed an open and honest relationship with their parents, especially when it came to difficult subjects such as sexuality. “My dad started as a biochemist and he became a psychologist. We could ask
anything and he would give us a very direct answer. They both had a very scientific approach to things and were very upfront and direct. I am very grateful for that. And it’s interesting because as a result of being able to ask them anything, the family is very, very close.
“And I still feel like I can tell my mother anything, which is a great thing.” She laughs. “She won’t necessarily agree, but I can tell her and she will have an opinion, and that is fine. I love that that’s the nature of our family and our extended family.”
Back in work mode, Kidman is enjoying the most successful time of her career – both behind and in front of the camera. “I started producing on Rabbit Hole [2010] which came out of frustration because I wasn’t being offered roles that had a lot of substance at that time.” It was a role for which she earned her third Best Actress Oscar nomination. “I gradually built my confidence as a producer, and obviously with Big Little Lies,
I had an incredible partnership with Reese [Witherspoon] and Bruna [Papandrea].”
Cognisant of her power, she adds, “Right now, I am in a position to get things made. I just bought the rights for [ Big Little Lies author] Liane Moriarty’s latest book, Nine Perfect Strangers, which is fantastic. She wrote a character for me in the book – a Russian immigrant,” she smiles. “It was so exciting to be able to say to Liane, ‘I promise you I am going to get this made’.” She smiles widely. “That’s a fantastic thing to be able to say as a woman.”
In a recent interview, Kidman said she didn’t see herself as a celebrity, and considers the term better suited to the likes of Beyoncé. “Well, Beyoncé is a queen. She’s Queen Bey! I don’t have that kind of fame.”
I tell her that is absolute rubbish – that she is an actor and a celebrity. She laughs.
“Yeah, I see myself as an actor, I do. Sometimes there’s more interest in my life and who I am, depending on what’s happened at different times in my life. And with that [fame] comes scrutiny.” Her gaze is direct. “I live in Nashville for a reason. I like the peacefulness, I like the solitude. We have a very simple life there so
that is probably why I don’t feel like I live this grand celebrity life. I step in for a moment and then I step out – back to all the real day-to- day things.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate and understand and have gratitude for that incredible gift I’ve been given, but the reason I keep saying, ‘No, I am an actor’ is because it keeps it on the work and not about me,” she insists to me.
Kidman just wrapped the highly anticipated second season of Big Little Lies with new addition, Meryl Streep. “She signed on without even reading the script because she wanted to support Reese and myself and the other women. Meryl shows up, no bells and whistles, and is like, ‘Let’s work.’ I love that.” (Both actresses starred in 2002’s The Hours, but they never worked together due to entirely separate storylines.)
“If you had told me when I was 14 years old, when I began working as an actress, that I was actually going to work with Meryl, I would have never believed it.
“She was so much a guiding light for me in her pursuit of excellence, in the way she conducted herself and that she managed to have marriage, children and a career.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “Talk about a woman that is fully grounded. And it’s great that she continues to be a trailblazer. I hope I can do that for the next generation and keep passing it on.”
“If you’d told me when I was 14 that I would work with Meryl, I would never have believed it.”