Defying the dated Hollywood notion of reducing middle-aged actresses to insignificant roles, Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman is everywhere in recent years, from TV to the big screen where her latest drama The Goldfinch is coming out this weekend.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
The film, adapted from the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt, stars Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver) as Theodore Decker, whose life changes when his mother is tragically killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and immediately a dying man urges him to take a famous painting. He is later placed into foster care with his best friend Andy's family and forms a bond over a joint interest in antiques and art with the mother, played by Kidman.
The film premiered at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, with Kidman hard at work at different projects. Her credits include Moulin Rouge, Rabbit Hole, Lion, and The Hours, for which she won the Academy Award back in 2003 for her portrayal of author Virginia Woolf.
Over the past couple of years, Kidman appears to have experienced a career renaissance coinciding with her small-screen success with the series Big Little Lies in which she starred and which she also co-produced with Reese Witherspoon. For the first season of the series, Kidman won two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards - as lead actress and producer. Kidman was the one responsible for acquiring the original book's right to make the show and essentially created work for herself.
"I'm at that point where I have the ability to buy things through my company and get things made", says Kidman in an interview promoting her latest project, "it's still really hard, it's never easy, it's an uphill battle always, but I am able to pull in writers that I know, female writers, I seek out directors, female directors, to give them opportunities, so their voices really get heard - and that's an incredible thing to have at this stage, just suddenly that opens a whole other aspect of creativity for me. And I'm kind of stunned that it happened because I have always had the desire like Rabbit Hole, but once Big Little Lies was such a big success, it's kind of opened doors that I didn't even know were there.
"And part of it now is that balance of going what can I take on and really see through to the end? 'Cause I don't like having that massive, I just don't like having a glut of things, I am not great at going okay, we have this, this and this, I love being detailed and I love being able to say to somebody this will get made and being able to baby it and nurture it.
"So, a lot of it is just going I can actually just focus and get this through to the end. And that's what we did with season two, we got it focused and through to the end, and it required enormous focus to get it there. And that's exciting when that happens. And now we are getting a barrage of fans going, 'Season Three, Season Three!' I'm just like hold on, hold on. Because we want to do it right, so it's always very careful and that's my nature."
Q: With a career spanning four decades, do you feel like you've aged on camera?
"Sometimes I see my mother, and particularly in "The Goldfinch" I can see my mother, I look so much like my mother in the older version of this. And it's sort of startling actually. And that's actually kind of nice in a way. But I love being given the opportunity, I think a lot of it is just, and Sarah Paulson will say the same thing, she was not, John didn't think of her originally for that role, yet she came in and just grabbed it and did it and suddenly you have a different view of Sarah because she was able to do, she's such a chameleon.
"It's lovely when you are given that opportunity to be a chameleon and also to change and morph and become. It's what I am hungry for always, and as I continue on my creative path, I'm always like okay, where can I go, what can I do, where can I grow and learn and change and see the world through different eyes. And that's what I get to do, which is just an incredible gift."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
