Image Source: DesiMartini

Nicole Kidman, who has gained an appreciation for her portrayal of Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s "Being the Ricardos," spoke to The Guardian about how, after her fourth child was born (using a surrogate), she got a chance to live another life as she started to say yes to projects made for television.

Nicole Kidman, who has starred in the series Nine Perfect Strangers, The Undoing, Big Little Lies, etc., shared with The Guardian, "I would never have thought television would be an avenue for growth for me." Nicole’s breakthrough television performance came when she was cast as Celeste Wright in Big Little Lies in 2017, and her character was not only appreciated by the audience but also by the critics.

Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers. Image Source: Cheat Sheet 

Nicole’s character, Celeste Wright, led her to win an Emmy Award and she said during the interview, "Television gives you a much stronger connection with an audience, because you’re in their homes. I had a far deeper response than I’d ever had, which just suddenly came hurtling towards me. " The actress who plays the role of a woman who is in a deeply twisted, often violent relationship with her husband, Perry, played by Alexander Skarsgard, Celeste has suffered quietly from a never-ending cycle of psychosexual abuse, which she has often mistaken for love or intense passion. In one scene from the show, when Celeste is talking to her therapist, she says, "It’s as if we turn each other on by rage."

In her Vogue interview before, Nicole Kidman shared that the author of the book, Liane Moriarty, had one condition: she had to play Celeste if they got the series made. In her interview, Nicole was asked to describe the therapy scenes between Celeste and her psychologist that were described as brutal and how the character’s denial starts to unravel in the last episodes, to which Nicole said, "That makes me cry when people have that type of response because as an actor, that’s a very deep, beautiful response from people. There's an enormous amount of this in the world. It’s insidious, it’s not understood, it’s very aligned with shame and secrecy and, obviously, pain and sacrifice and blame. All of those words are profoundly deep words and carry deep emotions. Yet how it’s done is that it slowly unravels. It’s how Celeste has to unravel herself. What is so important for her is that when she goes to seek help, she doesn’t want the relationship to be destroyed, she just wants it to be fixed. She knows these things are unhealthy, but she’s not willing to delve any deeper than "I just need some tools." That’s where it starts, and then slowly, through this extraordinary therapist—who immediately knows, the minute she sees them as a couple, what’s going on—she knows it’s going to be a very hard road. Celeste is living in a very dangerous place. "

Nicole Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard during a therapy scene in Big Little Lies. Image Source: Entertainment Weekly 

On asking if she was happy to put the character behind her, Nicole answered, "I didn’t realize how much of it penetrated me. I would go home at night sometimes and be in a lot of pain, and I had to take things like Advil because I was being thrown around physically. I was bruised. At one point, Keith was like, "I’m going to take a photo of your back because it’s covered in deep, massive bruises. He was devastated to see it, but then he would say, "But I have an artist wife!" He knows that’s how I work; I don’t even notice it half the time. I loved playing her because she was a beautifully written character with a director that wanted to go there and having an actor like Alex play opposite of her was amazing. That’s what we all seek as actors. But at the same time, when I walked away from it, I remember thinking that was the deepest I’ve gone in terms of finding and losing things. "

In her recent Guardian interview, Nicole Kidman remembered that people would come up to her and talk about how their friends could relate to her character Celeste and described it as "It was... quite lovely." The actress was also asked how her fame had changed her, to which she replied, "I don’t live that life. I’m deeply embedded in a family, in a very deep marriage. I have a family. I’m a daughter. Those are the primary things. And yes, I have other things that circulate. But at my base are relationships that are very, to use your word, "real." And I’d love to have them be more rose-colored and fluffy, but they’re startlingly real, as is mortality, as are all of those things that you circle as a human being. The only thing I can bring to my work is that emotional truth. My life is my life – I’m left alone with that ultimately, right? I mean, you’re not working at 3 am, lying in bed. "

Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep have talked about the lack of opportunities for women in the industry. Image Source: POP Sugar 

Nicole Kidman also revealed in an interview with the Guardian that during one of her conversations with Meryl Streep at the Cannes Film Festival, the two discussed how the industry lacks in creating opportunities for women, and that when she pledged to star in a female-directed film or show every 18 months, the industry responded positively. She said, "It was my way of saying, ‘Hold me accountable.’ My commitment to this industry is that I will give a platform for new voices to come forward and they can piggyback on me. That is a form of "paying it forward."I could rest. Or I could actually do what I promised I’d do. Sure, I But at the same time, I feel this strong sense that I need to stop talking about it, and actually... do it. I have a 13-year-old who wants to be a director – she’s really interested in comedy. "