THE reason we asked you to be on the cover of our one-year anniversary issue today is because if anyone seems to have had a spectacular 12 months, it’s you. Has this been your best year yet?
I’m always just gently moving through life, so I try to not have the massive highs and the massive lows and try to stay in a consistent place. But in terms of just really savouring the moment, yes. And Cannes [2017 Cannes Film Festival held in May] was such an unusual, spectacular time because I had four films I’d made — well, one of them was television — but to be there with four, well that’s just crazy, and then to be given that award [70th Anniversary Prize] by the jury. It doesn’t happen very often, and so because I’ve had such a long go of it now [laughs], I know when things are good and I savour them.
You came home for the Australian premiere of Lion at the end of last year. That film became the eighth most popular Australian film of all time, and then you were nominated for best supporting actress at the Oscars. Not too shabby, is it?
No! [Laughs.] I was reminded that it’s very rare that Australian actors get nominated playing Australians, so that was really special. I think there’s only been three: Geoffrey [Rush], Jacki Weaver and myself. So that’s a really lovely group to be in and also it feels like full circle for me because that’s where I started and that’s how I learnt my craft, and that’s where I was moulded and obviously that’s how I’ve been raised — as an Australian. To then be in an Australian film that’s so successful and then on a world stage nominated in that regard — and with my Australian accent — that was really, really great.
Obviously you have a very personal connection with adoption, given your two oldest children are adopted, and in many ways Lion depicted the particularly selfless nature of being an adoptive parent.
For me, the thing I found so special about [Lion screenwriter] Luke Davies’s writing was his ability, because it’s true — because it’s what happened — is that you saw the love between a birth mother and an adoptive mother, and that for me had not been emphasised ever in a film really... You are connected in a very different way than a lot of families, yet both the birth mother and the adoptive mother are so valuable for the child. And for the child to acknowledge that as well is what’s gorgeous, and the way they’ve played it because he has two mothers and he loves them both. Oh! It just gets me...
Big Little Lies aired here in Australia earlier this year, wherein you served as an executive producer as well as scoring your second Emmy nomination. This was an example of storytelling primarily driven by women, about women, that we don’t always see in an authentic way onscreen.
No, and that was what was so gratifying because when we were putting it together I think everyone thought, “Oh well, it’s going to appeal, you know, to a certain type of woman; women that have kids in kindergarten and that’ll be where it sort of begins and ends and that’s fine.” But then for it to reach much further than that, and men love the series, that’s where we went, “Wow!” And I kept saying, “People should have viewing parties”, [laughs] and everyone would sort of look at me like, “Well, people don’t watch TV like that.” So when it did happen, it was like, “Yes!”
Well, I did a lot of research in terms of talking to women and I would hope we gave some sort of understanding as to why certain people don’t leave a relationship even though they do have bruises and they are being hit... all of those nuances I think are not put into film or television very often. And I really fought hard for those things to stay and to really be allowed to breathe, and for people to have to sort of absorb them and mull them over. And I’ve had an amazing response from people who are either in something or have a friend who’s in something. I mean it’s opened a lot of people’s eyes, but I’ve also been sitting across the dinner table from someone going, “Well, that was the only storyline I didn’t believe. The minute you were hit, you would’ve left.” I felt crushed by that, I was like [sighs]. But 90 per cent of the response has not been that.
You worked with Reese Witherspoon on Big Little Lies but a lot of your recent projects, such as Top Of The Lake: China Girl and The Beguiled, also feature younger female characters. Is that a conscious decision on your part, to be mentoring young women?
It’s also just a natural kind of feeling that I have. I have nieces and I have my daughters and I have a younger sister, so I spent most of my life in that place of going, “Oh, what can I do to help you or take care of you?” And I love doing it. And I’ve been mentored and guided by older women in my life, beautifully, and I feel like it’s part of passing it on, it’s part of just the natural way in which we’re meant to help the new generation. It’s important to have places where you can ask questions and someone will give you an honest answer or help you make a decision — that’s just part of the responsibility I think of being a woman in this industry, but also in life. And it’s not just to other young girls, it’s to anybody who’s younger who wants help because that’s how we create closeness, and I think it’s probably my maternal drive which I love tapping into.
Sofia Coppola [who directed The Beguiled] recently told Stellar it was Jane Campion who first inspired her to take up directing — which seems like a nice segue to talk about your reunion with Jane in Top Of The Lake: China Girl.
Well, my reunion working with her, but our friendship has been ongoing for so many years. It’s interesting because I play Alice’s [Englert] adoptive mother who is Jane’s daughter [in real life] so to then be working with her is just delightful. And — talk about a lifetime of togetherness — Jane knew me at 14, so to still be friends decades and decades later and still working together; and we go on hikes and we’re always trying to plan adventures and she’s always giving me books because she has the most extraordinary taste in books and poetry. But talk about mentoring — I mean she really mentored me and has guided me and continues to do so and encourages me, too.
You have pledged to make a movie with a female director every 18 months because you believe that’s the only way that the statistics will change.
I’m not eliminating men, but I’m saying I will work witha woman every 18 months as long as I’m making a film or I’ll do a play or I’ll do something that’s directed by a female because I do believe that, if you look at things statistically, it’s still not good... When you look at the actual numbers, we’re not even at 25 per cent. I like to emphasise that because everyone thinks, “Oh, well! It’s all done now, you know, great, we’ve all sort of stood up and it’s all happening.” But it isn’t.
Have you ever considered directing, yourself?
[Laughs.] I’ve kind of flitted around the idea and certainly in my imagination I’ve gone into that place, but the reality is I have two young, young children and I need to raise them. As much as I can go do a role for a month, I can’t go and make a film for 18 months where I’m the director; that workload is just too massive with my little girls. There’s things where you just go, “OK, well, if I were single, then that’s what I would be doing.” I’d definitely be attempting that — but I’m not. I’m very happily married, but I’m also so proud to be mothering them and I don’t want to miss that. I’m more than happy to walk away from certain career things that I know I probably won’t get the opportunity ever to do, so that I can be their mother. You know, Sunny [daughter Sunday Rose] came in recently with a tick in her head and I yanked the tick out of her head. And the idea of somebody else doing that would be just devastating to me. Or, you know, during a thunderstorm when Fifi [daughter Faith] is scared of thunder, I don’t want anybody else taking care of her or comforting her — I want to do that. So maybe it’s selfish, but that’s what Keith [husband Keith Urban] and I want to do, so that there’s always one of us there taking care of them. [Laughs.] We love them, they’re so lovely... They’re really nice girls, I have to say.
That’s a credit to you — they must make you both very proud.
They make us very happy, is what they do. They bring so much joy to both of us. Keith just walked in. [She puts down the phone to speak with Urban.] “Don’t those daughters just bring so much joy to you, babe?” [pause] “So much!” he yelled out [laughs].
In terms of your own parents, you’ve talked about being raised by a very strong feminist mother and how your father was such a defining force in your life.
My mum and dad were both so nurturing and my mum still is. She has so many friends, which was so apparent when my father died and just all of the people they’d formed such strong friendships with over the years were there for us as a family. I really saw them step in and help take care of my mother because our family was shattered by that, we all were. She’s got a friend who she’s been friends with since she was four. I’m similar; one of my best friends I’ve been best friends with since I was four, Annette. And she’s still my best friend. So that’s what I saw and that’s what I was around and that’s what I still see...
Amid the accolades that have come your way this past year was the Kidman World Cup, launched by a Variety film critic, wherein there were Twitter polls to determine your best film role. What did you think of the eventual winner, To Die For? Would it have got your vote? Aww, these are my children. I can’t choose one child over another [laughs]. I just couldn’t believe it. Barry Jenkins, who directed Moonlight, told me about it and I was like, what? I didn’t quite understand what it was, but then I was really touched, actually. I mean, that’s a lovely thing to happen. But it also made me giggle [laughs]. I’m like, huh?
You have been in the spotlight almost all of your adult life and, unlike a lot of your peers, you haven’t really ever dropped out of the industry. What do you think accounts for that longevity?
I’ve gone quiet at different times. After I had Sunday, when I moved to Nashville, actually, I went very quiet and at one point I was like, “OK, I think I’m done now and I’m just going to be on this farm and I’m going to have a holiday.” And then my mother, who always comes back into the conversation, said, “I don’t think you should do that; I know you, I’ve raised you, and I know you’re a creative soul and I think you should at least keep a toe in the water. I don’t think you should just give it up.” She’s the one who encouraged me to go back onstage for Photograph 51 [Kidman played English scientist Rosalind Franklin in the 2015 West End production] and I listen to her because she’s wise. And I’ve had other women in my life that said, “Don’t just give it all up now because you may want it when you get older.” And I’m glad they said that. It’s just a long journey, a creative journey, and some of it will be up and some of it will be down and some of it will be a dry spell. But as long as the passion artistically stays alive, I think then stay at it. My father worked up until the day he died. That’s what I know, so that’s my work ethic. It was put into me at a very early age and I’m very much about never taking that for granted.
The rollercoaster, with its highs and lows, is inevitable in any career. There have been periods in your life where there has been a public pile-on. Does it hurt to be in the middle of that sort of hostility when, for whatever reason, it’s open season on Nicole Kidman?
I think because I live over here [in the US] now, I’m probably not as aware of it. I’m not into the whole social-media watching, it’s just not my life, so I don’t have an antenna that’s really aware of what’s going on. And that’s good and bad. I get told snippets of things; maybe it’s my protection mechanism, but also I have family and I have a lot of other things that I have to focus on. And I’m lucky I’ve found a partner who’s very, very protective — deeply protective — of not just me but his little girls as well. I feel very shielded in a way. It allowed me to go do my work. But at the same time, I mean of course, I’m sensitive and I’m emotional, so those things are always going to be... “Oh, OK, they didn’t like that”, or “That didn’t work”, or “That seemed to create a lot of anger.” And you go, “Oh well, but I did the best that I could do.” But that’s something hopefully to teach a child is, you know — you fall down, you get back up and you keep moving forward because that is life, and that’s going to happen to each and every one of us. Nobody gets an easy road, I mean I don’t know anyone.
You mention your husband is protective of you — he must feel very proud you’re having this amazing run?
Well he does, but he has got his own career and life, so he’s actually in the midst of making music right now, he’s doing his album. He’s not an actor, he’s not really in the film industry so his awareness of it is not that high. I mean he says, “OK, where do we have to go? Go to another red carpet?” But occasionally he’ll go, “Oooh, I think I’m just gonna skip this one” [laughs]. But he’s making music, which is fantastic because he’s not a... I don’t have a fan husband, I have a husband. What I’m doing in acting, he’s doing in music.
Read more: ]http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/stellar/i-just-want-to-say-thank-you-to-australia/news-story/8250a0fe03fa24ce50e6ae3fe3ae1d88
David Koma - Designer, Creative Director of David Koma & Blumarine