Nicole Kidman opened up in one of her most vulnerable interviews yet with W Magazine.
Although the award winning actress is known for many groundbreaking roles, she most recently received praise for her role as Celeste in HBO’s miniseries Big Little Lies, based on the book of the same name.
If you’ve read the book or watched the miniseries, you know that her character experiences instances of extreme physical abuse from her husband Perry (played by Alexander Skarsgård).
In her interview with W Magazine, Kidman revealed what it was like filming those incredibly difficult scenes.
Said the actress,
“I felt very exposed and vulnerable and deeply humiliated at times.”
She added,
“But at times I would have flashes of images of women that have gone through this and I’m like, ‘This is authentic, this is the truth and this is what I have to do.”
Kidman would truly get into the role, and it even impacted her own mindset and emotions. She explained,
“I remember lying on the floor in the bathroom at the very end when we were doing the scenes in episode 7, and I was lying on the floor and I just wouldn’t get up in-between takes. I was just lying there, sort of broken and crying, and I remember at one point Jean-Marc coming over and just sort of placing a towel over me because I was just lying there in half-torn underwear and just basically on the ground with nothing on and I was just, like [gasps].”
Nicole also revealed that the difficult emotions even came home with her after filming had wrapped. It affected her much deeply than she imagined, but explained that,
“I’m here to tell the story and to be true to the art, not to bring my own problems in terms of what I feel comfortable with, not comfortable with.”
We can’t imagine just how traumatic filming these kinds of disturbing scenes is. We applaud Kidman for authentically bringing this kind of situation that is often swept under the rug, to the screen.
