“Finely-tuned”: why Nicole Kidman says Baz Luhrmann is always ahead of his time
Nicole Kidman works hard.
With a resumé bursting at the seams, she’s worked with everyone from Stanley Kubrick to Jane Campion, never compromising quality (well, most of the time) in her quest to seemingly star in as many projects as physically possible for an actor.
Starting her career in her native Australia, she’d inevitably move to America and begin a tenure as a fastly rising star, transitioning from Aussie productions to massive Hollywood hits like Batman Forever in a matter of just a few years.
Kidman had the star power required to move into the realm of being a leading lady, captivating audiences with her unforgettable presence. Not only that, she constantly demonstrated great range – this was an actor whom directors wanted to work with.
Yet, while she embraced being a Hollywood star in the ‘90s, she couldn’t escape home. In 2001, she starred in the tragic musical romance Moulin Rouge!, with fellow Australian Baz Luhrmann at the helm.
He’d already made the mega-hit Romeo + Juliet, which had launched Leonardo DiCaprio to proper heartthrob status in the ‘90s and had been praised for its unique take on a Shakespearean classic. Kidman had to work with him, not least because they both had grown up in Sydney.
Moulin Rouge! had Kidman singing and performing as she’d never done before, and she really wasn’t sure if she could do it. The actor was left doubting her abilities, worried that her performance would fall short of what Luhrmann needed from her.
“It felt like an out-of-reach film for me,” she told GQ, but she knew she had to do it – it was too good an opportunity to pass up. In the end, though, she stuck with it, telling Entertainment Weekly, “I just have faith in Baz.”
So, despite her busy schedule full of big names, of course, she had to clear space in her diary to work with Luhrmann again. In fact, she believes that he is “ahead of his time,” the actor told Bafta. They reunited for Australia, which was tonally very different from Moulin Rouge!. With Hugh Jackman, Kidman was immersed in an adventure romance, a melodrama set against the backdrop of war.
“I recently watched Australia again, and I was like, ‘Oh wow.’ It was a massive undertaking, that movie, and strangely enough, so relevant for today. I went – it’s actually even more relevant now than it was when it was made,” Kidman said. “He’s just got that brain; he’s so well-educated and so finely tuned, I just feel that he actually is a filmmaker who is ahead of his time.”
Australia didn’t fare as well as Luhrmann’s previous efforts, predominantly criticised for being too long and just not having that quintessential Luhrmann essence that made his stylish and gritty takes on the romantic drama so good in the past. Still, Kidman was happy to work with Luhrmann again, respecting his bold visions and approach to making movies that refused to conform to a conventional definition of genre.
