Nicole Kidman is the real deal. Throughout her decades of performing, she’s worked with some of the best filmmakers on some of the most interesting projects, even if they weren’t always going to be guaranteed hits. And in a new episode of the WTF Podcast, she spoke not only about her career working with auteurs but also her upcoming film with one of the newest filmmakers to really spice up the industry, Robert Eggers.
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During the conversation, Kidman talked up many of the auteurs she worked with and loved Stanley Kubrick and Sydney Pollack, who both worked with her on “Eyes Wide Shut.” Of course, she also name-checked some of the most important and favorite films in her career, including Gus Van Sant‘s “To Die For,” Baz Luhrmann‘s “Moulin Rouge,” and “Portrait Of A Lady.” (She went on to say, “Jane Campion changed my life.”)
Her desire to work with auteur filmmakers also led her to personally track down Lars von Trier. She explained that she was so broken by “Breaking The Waves,” that she had to chase down Lars von Trier and coax him to work with her.
“I was fascinated,” Kidman said. “I sought von Trier out and went over there [to pitch myself to him]. I saw ‘Breaking The Waves’ and I was in the fetal position after that movie. We saw it in a screening room in London, we were meant to go to dinner afterward and I just went home and got under the covers in a fetal position.”
Kidman described having a similar reaction to Lee Daniels‘ “Precious” (“I couldn’t function.”). Said she’d “love” to work with Denzel Washington at some point. But before she gets to work with Washington, Kidman is first going to finish up the Viking drama “The Northman” with Robert Eggers, and to hear it from her, this project sounds almost like her art-patron-like duty to work with an auteur like the director.
“It’s very weird, how’d you guess?” Kidman laughed when asked to explain “The Northman.” She said she plays a queen in the movie and Ethan Hawke is her king.
Of course, Kidman and Hawke aren’t the only reasons to be excited about Eggers’ new film. “The Northman” is the third film from the director after “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.” And also in the cast are Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Claes Bang, and Willem Dafoe.
“I’m terrified to do this,” Kidman said she told Eggers, one because of the pandemic, but also because she felt obligated to work with new voices and give herself new challenges. “This is so important. And that’s why I went: I want to work with these people and if we can do with safety, so fantastic and we did. The film is finished. It was crazy wild and I have a supporting role in it. But [Robert] Eggers is really fascinating. He’s part of the new guard, he’s coming in, they’re going to take over. He’s a great filmmaker.”
And of course, you can’t talk with Kidman without asking about “Big Little Lies,” which she explained is still not ready for a Season 3, just yet.
“We’re still very close,” she said about the cast. “To the point that we still want to do a Season 3 if we can muster it all together.”