The career-altering advice that changed everything for Nicole Kidman: “I know it’s not for me”
For over 40 years, Nicole Kidman has been a performer at the top of her game. She has transitioned wonderfully from new kid on the block to established draw to elder stateswoman with plenty left in the tank. Her repertoire includes just as many box office toppers as it does interesting indie numbers. Just look at her 2024; she starred in both The Perfect Couple, a number one series for Netflix, and Babygirl, a twisted erotic drama that split critics right down the middle.
The Australian star has seen and done it all, and the wisdom she could impart to the next generation is enough to fill several huge books. In a conversation with Vanity Fair, Kidman was asked what her process was when reading a script for the first time, and her answer was somewhat surprising.
“If it’s a good script, I mean, I sit down and I start reading,” she said. “And then, if it holds me, I just read, and I don’t stop. And then I make notes immediately.” Some actors adopt a more meticulous approach to scripts, reading them multiple times before deciding which project to spend their time on. Diving in headfirst like this seems risky, but Kidman had good reason to follow this procedure, as it was imparted to her by one of the all-time greats.
“[Stanley] Kubrick taught me that,” she revealed. “He said, ‘Because there’s no other thing than the first read. After that, it’s all going to be a slightly different response reaction, but it won’t be immediate and intuitive.’ And all the ideas that appear or the lack of things in there. So he used to send you the script in an envelope and say, ‘I’m going to pick it up in two hours,’ and then he would take it back to make sure that you sat and read it.”
The maverick director memorably worked with Kidman on his final movie, Eyes Wide Shut, an erotic thriller which almost certainly led to her casting in Babygirl. The film, in which she starred alongside then-husband Tom Cruise, must have seemed completely mad when written down, but the decision to take the job has stayed with Kidman ever since. Though it was critically divisive at the time, her performance is one of her best, an antidote to anybody who makes the bold claim that she cannot act or doesn’t pick interesting projects.
“I didn’t make any notes with him. I was just like, ‘I’m in, whatever. I don’t even need to read it,’” Kidman revealed of her relationship with the late filmmaker. She said that she did make notes for Babygirl director Halina Reijn, explaining that, “I read beginning to end, and then I just called her and said, ‘Okay, how do we get it made? What do we do? Tell me now what to do.’ We also just talked a lot about what it made me feel, what I responded to, ideas, and I had questions for her. It was different to what the film is now because it was the first draft, or it was, I think, one of her first drafts where it was still in the shaping form.”
Babygirl is just as brilliant and discordant as Eyes Wide Shut. Kidman earned a Golden Globe nomination for her part in it, and the infamous ‘milk scene’ will likely be one of the most talked about in recent memory. Turns out Kubrick was right to tell her to go with her gut.
