Nicole Kidman on ‘Big Little Lies’ and ‘Bombshell’; roles bringing her back to Golden Globes, SAG Awards [Complete Interview Transcript]
Nicole Kidman returned to her highly acclaimed role as Celeste Wright in the second season of “Big Little Lies” earlier this year. She is also co-starring as Gretchen Carlson in the upcoming film “Bombshell,” about the Fox News scandal involving Roger Ailes. Her HBO role has brought her back as a nominee at the Golden Globes (plus an ensemble bid at the SAG Awards). Her film project has her nominated at the SAG Awards in the ensemble and supporting actress category.
Kidman recently spoke with Gold Derby senior editor Daniel Montgomery about revisiting Celeste, how the role has changed how she interacts with people in the world, and what to expect from “Bombshell.” Watch the exclusive video interview above and read the complete transcript below.
Gold Derby: First off, what did you think about getting the chance to revisit these characters and the story for another seven episodes?
Nicole Kidman: Really, really grateful that we had the opportunity to keep exploring their lives and the way in which the season ended at the beginning of Season 1 to then have such rich storylines for not just the five of us but also for the Mary Louise role, that was really exciting. And for me playing Celeste, it’s still so complicated or there’s so many places she is still so damaged and raw and secretive and she’s not healed and that was really important for me to keep exploring and for that to be very authentic and true.
GD: What were your thoughts about getting to explore the complexity of this woman who is, on one hand, mourning her husband who she genuinely loved but is also free of her abuser, which he also was in her life? What was that like?
NK: It’s really complicated material. That’s why subsequently I have so many different responses from women who are either in the situation, have been in the situation, have left an abusive relationship, can’t leave an abusive relationship. I get letters. I get people stopping me and wanting to talk in the weirdest places and it just shows you that this is so insidious. It’s incredibly prevalent and real and even Celeste’s struggle in the sense of what happened to her and how Perry is now dead but the idea that she remembers him and remembers good things and is still very much pulled and addicted to what that was, but at the same time, she knows how it so incredibly sabotaged her and her children and really caused damage. She’s recovering from trauma. Recovering from trauma is complicated and it’s kind of like one step forward, two steps back. That’s how it goes. It’s not an easy path and David [E. Kelley] and Liane [Moriarty] and Andrea [Arnold] all wanted to be true to that. A lot of women have come and said to me that on the stand when I stand there talking about why I stayed, when the judge asked me why I stayed, that answer, to them is so real and true. It’s just so dense when you’re dealing with seven hours of television, particularly Celeste’s path. It’s just so dense. I wish there was more to it because there’s so much more to still explore.
GD: You mentioned Meryl Streep joining the cast in Season 2 as Mary Louise. Interestingly, it’s sort of a reunion from “The Hours” but of course the way that film was structured you didn’t actually share scenes together in that film. So what was it like finding out she would be joining the cast as your mother-in-law and getting to work with her these seven episodes?
NK: Such a stroke of genius that Liane Moriarty came up with this character, Mary Louise, called her Mary Louise, knowing that that was Meryl’s real name and sending that subliminal message to her. At the same time, Meryl is such a supporter of women and female directors and a desire to work with women and explore these really, really light and dark sides of women in their relationships with other women and with their families and with their husbands and with their partners. She was primed. She was ready (laughs). We were just felt incredibly lucky to get someone with that amount of skill to play Mary Louise ‘cause Mary Louise is very difficult to play but I was lucky because so many of my scenes with her are very, very complicated. A lot of times we don’t say a lot and there’s those very jagged responses that we have with each other because we don’t understand each other. There’s a terrible grief in the family and the family unit. None of us know how to manage it or navigate it and then we finally end up in court. I love that we have these two women that are related. I’d never seen that before where they’re related in court, all of these truths are being said but they’re fighting over these little points. Some of the writing in that is just superb and as an actor, you just go, “Thank you, thank you for giving you that, David E. Kelley.”
GD: That’s something that David E. Kelley as a writer is famous for, written a lot of legal dramas over the course of his career so getting to see Celeste who is a lawyer more in that context this season, what was it like shooting especially the climactic cross-examination scene where Celeste confronts Mary-Louise on the sand?
NK: It was really hard because there were weeks in that courtroom. You run the gamut of having to one, the idea of losing my children, that that could actually happen, knowing things are going to be revealed, terrified that these things I feel deeply ashamed of but I also feel I have the right to my privacy and not to be judged by my past or what I’m actually doing. I was speaking to a professor of psychology about it and she was saying nothing the thing about Celeste is Celeste is coping, and she’s actually coping well considering the circumstances. She’s far from a perfect mother. Her children are getting to school, they’re not being abused, she’s able to push through and she’s still got an enormous amount of work to do. I think that’s what I wanted is that you feel like this woman is very much damaged and she’s hurting but she’s not gonna be put into a psychiatric ward. She is actually going to dig deep. She’s reaching her bottom. She’s going to get better and she’s going to go forward. She is a good mother to these boys and she is going to break a pattern with her children that obviously could be continued. I think that’s really brave and I love that that is what happens over the course of those courtroom scenes and you see her get her strength. It’s not perfect strength either, it’s not like superhero. It’s slowly pulling myself together because I have to, because I’m not going to have my children taken away from me. They need their parent. They’ve lost one but they need their mother.
GD: Another thing that’s different about Season 2 of the show is there was so much tension between the Monterey 5 in the first season. Of course, there still is in the second but they share this secret about Perry’s death. There seems to be a bit more of a kinship even with that tension in Season 2. What was it like playing opposite those women in a more united way, even though there’s still drama between them?
NK: There’s interesting lines in that, because I say “The lie is the friendship.” That’s what I say to Madeline and I think that’s great writing because I say, “For you and I Madeline, we’re friends and Jane,” but the rest of us, we’ve been joined through this lie. I think what you get by the end is that however we’re going to move forward, the friendship will actually be forged in a far different way. It’s not gonna be because we’re maintaining a secret. It’s because we’re actually now willing to look at what’s happened and there will be honesty and there will be things dealt with. It will probably fall apart and things will get very painful and difficult but there’s also some great sense of release because by all going together and turning ourselves in and support of Bonnie, it’s like going, “Okay, now we’re actually going to start. We’re going to start dealing with a lot of things.” That to me is a fascinating way to end.
GD: And ending it that way, of course, we don’t know what happens after they turn themselves in how their lives are affected, how everyone’s lives are affected. Is the door open for you if the opportunity came around to maybe come back for a Season 3?
NK: If Liane Moriarty writes another book, which she is definitely percolating, I think that would be a very strong way for us to come back. I don’t know when that would happen but it would be wonderful to see what happens. When you look at the women in the series and you look at the men as well… I just love the idea of what happens to these children as well. The children are really strong parts of the series, so to see them a little bit older and start to see how all of this has affected them and then move into, they’re not in kindergarten but who knows where they would be in school so that’s interesting to me as well. I just love working with such talented people. You’re looking around and you’re going, “These women are the best of the best.” I just love being with them, being around them and learn from them, absorb and learn and then also spend time. So rare. Unbelievably rare, as we’ve always said, we’re usually surrounded by men. Rarely are you surrounded by women.
GD: You’re also working with a different director in Season 2. Jean-Marc Vallee directed the first season and Andrea Arnold directed the second. Did that change the dynamic, the approach to the character and the story in any significant way?
NK: For me, it was just, I think she’s so in me, Celeste, and staying open and emotional and raw. Andrea definitely had a strong understanding and a desire to explore and mine all of the depths. The scenes at the dinner table are really so beautifully directed and Andrea was so delicate with the children and Mary Louise and the scene at the dinner table with the children where he swears at me and calls me a bitch and I’m like, “You cannot talk to me like that. You cannot.” All of those jagged edges is so Andrea. It was just beautiful. Beautifully directed and I just felt very safe.
GD: I believe you’re working on another miniseries with David E Kelley, “The Undoing” coming up.
NK: With Susanne Bier another female director. Totally different, it’s a thriller with Hugh Grant. That’s a six-part limited series. We finished shooting in June and I’ve been not working since then (laughs). I’m exhausted ‘cause it was a four-month shoot I was pretty much in every single day. It was very intense so I’ve been lucky to have really wonderful roles at this stage in my life.
GD: Working on that and “Big Little Lies,” you are in “Top of the Lake” as well, a lot of these opportunities coming up in television especially to spend more time with a character, like 14 hours with Celeste so far. What’s that like to find these opportunities in television to really dig in deep for a longer period of time in a story?
NK: A lot of times having the screen time is just invaluable, but I think the most interesting part of it is my connection to people that watch the show because Celeste becomes a part of them. I’m in their houses and they can re-watch it and re-watch it and they can study it and they can look back on it. It’s far different. It’s a much deeper relationship that I end up having and maybe it’s also a character but the response, there’s no barrier. And I love that. I’ve never had that before so to have that at this stage of my career has been really enlightening, particularly with her. It’s just made me a lot closer to people in the world, and I love that. I noticed a huge difference in the way people react and respond.
GD: This fall you’re also co-starring in “Bombshell.” I’d just like to ask you a couple questions about that. You’re playing Gretchen Carlson who is a contemporary character. You played real characters before, Virginia Woolf in “The Hours,” but Gretchen Carlson is a contemporary figure, she’s still around. Does that change how you approach a role? Does it add pressure to that experience?
NK: There’s a certain rhythm and way in which she speaks. Her mannerisms and she’s been on broadcast news, so that’s a particular way of being and having to really nail it. But at the same time I always approach it through feeling and emotions and what I can emotionally connect to and I can bring it to life because so much of acting for me is when I just click, when it all starts to just be within my body and my psyche. Then there’s no wrongs. There’s just being, which is what we are always attempting to do and wherever it goes, it will be what they end up editing and putting into the film or the show is the choice of the director and that’s where the ultimate leader of the charge is, but as an actor, it’s more just, once I’m in, it’s such an extraordinary feeling because you just go and you’re in existence and the character is in existence. It’s almost like limbo for me, like a trance. I don’t necessarily remember things in detail because I’m so in it.
GD: It’s very serious subject matter, of course, the Fox News scandal about sexual harassment from Roger Ailes. but there’s a lot of humor in the movie and it comes from Jay Roach, who has balanced that in the past in “Game Change” and “Recount.” What was it like balancing that?
NK: Charles Randolph wrote “The Big Short” so there’s also that. The combo of Charles and Jay was really alluring. And also just to work with Margot [Robbie] and Charlize [Theron] and Connie [Britton] and Allison [Janney] and John Lithgow. The list goes on. Kate McKinnon I didn’t have any scenes with but I did get to watch all of these actors ‘cause it truly is an ensemble piece and that’s really rare but it’s weighty subject matter, it’s important subject matter that we hope is still extremely entertaining. It may be disturbing and cause you to recoil or think but at the same time it does entertain you. That was the goal.