The iconic role Nicole Kidman would “die” to play
How on earth does Nicole Kidman find the time to appear in so many films? It’s a miracle that she’s not burned out with the amount of projects she seems to take on at the minute.
In the same way that extroverts gain their energy from being around others, perhaps Kidman needs a constant flow of movies and television roles to stay afloat. It’s a good job that, at least for the most part, she picks them fairly wisely, allowing her filmography to boast some impressive titles like Eyes Wide Shut and Big Little Lies.
Throughout her career, Kidman has taken on devilishly smart characters like Suzanne in To Die For, tragic figures such as Satine in Eyes Wide Shut, and dissatisfied women in need of drastic life change, like Romy in Babygirl. Whether she’s playing a hero or a villain – or some grey area in between – the actor always hits every note right, and it’s this skill that has carried her through a diverse selection of characters.
One of her most unforgettable moments, however, came with a humour-laden role as the villain in the British family comedy Paddington. It seemed like the kind of film that, in all honesty, could’ve crashed and burned, but the tale of a family’s adoption of a lost little marmalade-loving bear from Peru captured the hearts of viewers. As the antagonistic Millicent Clyde, Kidman proved that she can play a super villain well, and it’s something she’d love to do more of.
In particular, there’s a certain character that the actor would just “die” to play, although it seems unlikely it’ll ever come to fruition. Speaking to Vogue, Kidman admitted that her dream role is the “Wicked Witch of the West in a remake of The Wizard of Oz.” Now, with the success of Wicked which took Hollywood by storm last year – which saw Cynthia Erivo play a slightly younger version of the iconic character – it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get a straight-up remake of The Wizard of Oz anytime soon.
Who knows, though? Hollywood loves to take a good movie and remake it into something depressingly unoriginal. With that being said, if an opportunity for Kidman to play the Wicked Witch of the West ever came about, I’m sure she would do a great job of it. She has certainly got the ability to embody a character filled with evil and disgust, and it would be fun to see her covered head to toe in green paint, too.
The Wizard of Oz saw Margaret Hamilton play the villain, who suffered serious burns on her body from shooting the scene where her exit from Munchkinland is accompanied by great flames. It was certainly a messy production, but Hamilton nonetheless played the green-skinned witch to perfection, making film history as one of the most instantly recognisable forces of evil. Perhaps one day Kidman will take on the part, although it seems like Erivo, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance as the character in Wicked, has taken the crown as the new Wicked Witch of the West.
