Nicole Kidman is currently promoting her Amazon Prime miniseries, Expats. The series was directed by Lulu Wang and I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds like a huge bummer. I’m sort of happy that Kidman is back in her bummer era – for a while, it felt like she was trying to do more commercial and mainstream projects, but she is (at heart) an indie queen who loves dark and offbeat material. Nicole covers the latest issue of Elle, and she comes across really well in this cover story – like she’s in a good space professionally and personally and there’s not a lot of sadness or drama in her life. Some highlights:
She loves the fact that her AMC ads went viral: “My dream will be to be onstage doing it with a drag queen. I’ve got to be able to do that at some point.” That the campaign went mega-viral, to Kidman, is kismet: She filmed it over one weekend while working on the movie Being the Ricardos, recruiting the film’s DP, Jeff Cronenweth, and her friend, Oscar-winning screenwriter Billy Ray, to make it happen. She felt it was her duty to answer AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron’s call to help get people back into movie seats. “It was just the desire to keep cinemas alive. I’ve had the best experiences in cinema. I’d pretend I was going to school; I’d forge a note, and I’d go and sit in a movie theater. That’s a safe haven for me, so the idea of those not existing—that’s just not part of the equation in my lifetime.”
Making the commitment to work with female filmmakers: “There’s a lot of talk, but I need to do; I’m a doer. I also just love women. I’m surrounded by great women and I understand all the aspects of different women, because we have so many women in our family. I feel very, very safe and very at home.”
Reflecting on when she won her one Oscar: “I haven’t won an Oscar when I wasn’t lonely,” she says frankly, but “I’ve been nominated since winning, and for me, it’s very much about the family, whether it be my mother, my husband, my kids. There’s something about it where you go, ‘Oh look, I earned this for the family.’ That makes it fun. That gives it meaning and gives it a joy.”
Life in Tennessee with her two younger daughters: “I like being a part of something not about my work, not about who I am, none of that. Just a citizen who’s in the world. And my kids love that, too, when I do that,” she says. And when they’re home, Kidman loves that their house is where all the girls’ friends gather. “I love teenage girls. I just find them exquisite. I marvel at that age group and what they’re dealing with, but also their ability to handle so much.”
She loves fashion but she’d rather be home in her jammies: “[The Hollywood awards circuit] feels a little unreal at times. I want to get out, take my dress off, and put my jammies on. It’s kind of like the opposite of Cinderella—I’m happy to go home and just go back to me. It does feel a little overwhelming. I’m like, ‘I need to go home now. I’m very tired. I want to get warm, and I want to curl up, and I want to feel real.’”
Her life these days: “I have a very full life with people that I love. I’m raising daughters. I’m a wife, I’m a best friend. I’m a sister, I’m an aunt. I have deeply intimate relationships with people. And that, to me, is the meaning of life—and then taking care of what we leave behind, who we leave behind and how we do that, and our sense of respect for that.”
I’ve never really thought about the fact that Kidman has only won one Oscar. Meryl has three, Renee Zellweger has two, Emma Stone has two, Cate Blanchett has two. Nicole is like “where’s my second Oscar, damn it!” She wants to win one with Keith. That’s cute. Well, it’s not going to happen if she keeps making sh-t like Being the Ricardos, I can tell you that much. And now Nicole has two teenage girls! I do not find teenage girls exquisite and you couldn’t pay me to go back to that age or hang out with teenage girls. I’m practically breaking out in hives just thinking about it. But I’m sure it feels different for Nicole!
Photos courtesy of Getty and covers courtesy of Elle.
I was watching Under the Bridge yesterday and also having thoughts about teen girls. Most of us weren’t murderous psychopaths but what a crazy age. Your brain thinks it’s more mature than it is and that’s reinforced by the world responding to you like you’re more sexually mature than you are. How did any of us survive that stage?
As for a second Oscar, I feel like Kidman’s best work is the fun campy roles. She’s hardly Meryl Streep.
Call me simple if you will, but I think her performance in The Others was fantastic. She should at least have gotten an Oscar nomination for that movie.
It was great but also borderline campy. If they gave Oscars for that type of role, I’d be down.
Yes! I think The Others is one of her best performances.
The Others came out the same year as Moulin Rouge. She was nominated for Moulin Rouge, and you can’t be nominated twice in the same category. It was a great performance though.
I love Moulin Rouge, like seriously I watch it a few times a year, but I think To Die For is her standout most fabulous role.
Love love love Moulin Rouge! Wasn’t that Nicole’s breakup movie from the little scamp TC?
Oh she was so good in that. My favorite role of hers, by far. I didn’t find it campy at all, but much of her stuff is.
Hahaha Bettyrose. I remember the girls smoking in the bathroom in junior high, oh my god those bitches were hard, like they were all 40 year old divorcees who had raised 5 kids alone and only dated bikers instead of 14 year old virgins. It was the 70s too when hip huggers barely covered anything. Good times.
LMFAO! Junior high girls who are hard like 40 year old divorcees sums it up perfectly. 🤣😭😂.
I remember (I’m about the same age) hating having to go the bathroom because I would smell like smoke! I also remember not making eye contact with anyone being the coward that I was. Scary girls.
I’ve never been good or comfortable with kids but my daughter and her friends are so fricking adorable, wholesome, funny, woke, happy and just awesome. She’s now 20 but all throughout her teenage years, she and her friends often hung out and did school projects at my house. Now she’s at university and again, she’s with a delightful group of friends. I absolutely adore them and love, love hearing about their life at university.
Do you mean “good” as in not good at working them out? Because your comment is so completely “on it” and understanding of kids/young adults that you sound amazing with kids to me. I’ve feel like I’m running to catch up with my children. There have been so many bumps and wild bends in the road. I get over one bump and then there’s another. It feels like I’m unprepared all the time. I hope to reach the place of wisdom you seem to be in.
It’s so rare to read something like that about teenage girls. Even women often talk about how much harder they are then boys and how they’d rather have boys than girls. I drives me nutty. Major kudos to Nicole for standing up for the girls!
I’m not a parent but I’ve seen plenty of those comments online and the internalized misogyny is staggering. And they’re passing that crap onto their own daughters. I career mentor younger women, not teens, but I feel more invested in the success of young women because I can relate more to their experiences.
Totally agree with you both and sincerely appreciate her positivity about her teenage daughters! As some commenters mentioned above, as an actual 40yo divorcee today, I’d still be intimidated by the ‘hardened’ teenage girls smoking and giving stink eye in the bathrooms at school, haha. Teenage years are so highly formative and I appreciate how much work goes into making it to adulthood for these kiddos.
That said, as am a mom of a pre-teen boy, the “I wish I had boys because they’re easier” comments drive me completely insane. It is only EASY to raise ANY child up through their teen years and into adulthood if you are doing a BAD job… there’s as much work involved with raising boys to good adults as there is with girls to good adults; but the attitude is still prevalent among some parents that you don’t have to do much with boys. It is mysogynistic to complain about our girls that way and at the same time doesn’t give enough credit to the complexity & needs of growing boys, and to those of us parents who work hard to raise up conscious men.
When parents think they don’t have to ‘parent’ their boys as much as they do their girls, that is when we all end up with a society of men-children who aren’t capable of making good decisions about themselves or the women & society they interact with.
I’m the opposite. I have girls and I love it. I honestly always hoped for girls over boys.
I love every comment in this thread!
The Others is still her best film. She should have gotten an Oscar for that. She’s soooo well preserved.
I hear what she’s saying. I absolutely adore aunting my niece and her crew of friends through their teens to early/mid-20’s. There was plenty of angst they needed help getting through, but they were also so smart and funny and insightful. I genuinely loved hanging out with them. My niece is in her 30’s now and lives far away, but a lot of her friends from that era are still in touch with me and it’s such a pleasure watching them grow into awesome adults.
Big Little Lies and her Virginia Wolfe were just amazing performances. She is my absolute fave.
And To Die For! She’s a fave of mine too. Such a tremendous actress, so much elegance and class on the red carpet.
She definitely deserves a second Oscar.
Teenage girls are little mini terrorists lol. They’re SCARY.
They truly are. It’s hilarious. I’ve realised the saying “teenagers need you more, want you less” is so true. Watching my teenage daughter and her friends rush headlong at life is a joy. Sometimes, though, teens drive you mad. I’ve been searching high and low for a top of mine for weeks. Asking here, asking there, getting the “not seen it” from all my kids. This morning I saw her shove it in her sleep over bag. There’s a party going on tonight. The crafty smile I got!!
She sounds like she’s in a real place of peace and comfort in her life and that makes me so happy. UnREAL that she only has one Oscar given how many fantastic performances she’s given. It’s weird because she’s always been one of my favorite actresses but I’ve always found her kind of vapid and surface-level in interviews. It never made sense to me, given the amount of depth and emotion she brings to every character she plays. But here she sounds really introspective and I gotta say, I like seeing this side of her–surprising and kind of delightful? LOL
Why is she raising her daughters in Tennessee where they have no reproductive rights
I hear that. I have cousins in Nashville who want their kids to stay close to home for college and I worry for those girls. But Nashville is blue and more blue voters flip red states, so I’m conflicted.
I have teenagers and I have just been in awe of the teen girls in my life. They ARE exquisite, and kind, thoughtful, full of joy and so funny and powerful. I find myself ready to, ahem, express my displeasure to anyone who ever takes those things away from them.
I really like nicole and seems like she’s content in her life. After her marriage to cruise and escaping scientology she deserves good things. Does anyone know what happened to her first two kids with cruise. Even though they’re grown, are they still in each other’s lives? She doesn’t seem to mention them anymore.
They’ve cut her out of their lives because Scientology told them she’s a “suppressive.” I can’t imagine the pain she’s endured losing her kids with Cruise to his cult.
I have a teenage girl and I agree with Nicole. My daughter is intelligent, funny, kind and people really trust her and respect her. I was a totally different teenager than her; I was a loudmouth, smart ass, lazy kid in high school. So I don’t know where she gets it from. But her friends are also lovely. I know all teens have their moments, they are also different people when we adults are not around, but I’m so impressed with most of the teenagers I know. Our friends’ oldest daughter graduated HS today. We have watched her grow up; they’ve been our neighbors for 10 years. She was our babysitter and our house sitter and honestly just a joy. We couldn’t be more proud!
She is a great actress and is still a beautiful woman, but she is also obsessed with youth. Hence her comments about teenage girls.
She’s so intense and I find her exhausting. Every emotion has to be extreme with her.
Jackie. I don’t know whether it’s just me, probably is, but articles wherein celebrities talk about their kids are so ****ing boring and self-congratulatory by proxy. It’s hard to tell: was she asked and felt compelled to answer re her daughters or did she volunteer. There seems to be a lot to interviews/interviewers that we don’t know. I find most celebrities intense, introspective, unaware that they have no really informed position to speak from regarding global events other than their own, at times very narrow, point of view. She is of course an expert on her family, not denying that, but I usually switch off when I see celebrity baby/infants/kids stuff, and I’d put this article in with that. The comments under this post have been more interesting. And yes, agree, she is extreme.
Is my teenage daughter exquisite? No: She’s a 5’10” thick, strong amazon with long curly hair. She loves food, dogs, pranks, drones, riding her bike, Blackpink and pretty much anything loud and vibrant. But she’s witty, luminous, kind, compassionate, and has solid notions about courage and honor. She’s actually my husband’s biological daughter; but both him and her mother have given me carte blanche for grounding her if I deem it in order -which I’ve never had to raise. I love her and take pride on her as if she is mine. I don’t need her to be exquisite, just herself. Her girl pals are a different story (d*mned shrilling, scrawny little b*tches).
I like this! My teenage daughter is the opposite. She’s stands out for being tiny, dwarfed by her “pack”, not interested overly in make up and clothes. She often looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards, so not “exquisite” as such, but she has the energy that teens have, which gets amped up when they’re en masse. I admire her sassy comeback technique, I link it to her fascination with American sitcoms as a kid!, and also a compulsion never to talk badly about her group or those who are different at school. I find that exquisite.