Nicole Kidman on her admiration for Jane Campion: “she became a guide”
Australia isn’t exactly the bustling home of Hollywood stardom. While legendary names like George Miller and Hugh Jackman have sprung from the land down under, the separation and distance of the continent make it a difficult reach compared to the more commuter-friendly cities of London or Los Angeles. For a young Nicole Kidman, a career in film didn’t even seem like the preferred medium.
“My first love was theatre, and a lot of that was pantomimes,” Kidman told John Wilson when she appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme This Cultural Life in 2022. “I remember getting up on stage. I remember watching those outrageous, fun pantomimes. That was probably my first desire to be on stage.”
Along the way, it was important for Kidman to make connections and see inspirations from which to take lessons. One of the first figures to impress Kidman and inspire her to make a move over to film acting was Jane Campion, the New Zealand director who was studying film at the Australian Film, Television and Radio school while Kidman was still a teenager.
“I was in a little drama school called Phillip Street Theatre,” Kidman said. “And Jane was in film school, so she was really young.” Campion came to one of Kidman’s rehearsals. “I remember people whispering, ‘There’s a director here!'”
“40 years later, I still know her,” Kidman added. “She became a guide.” Kidman auditioned for some of Campion’s short films while the pair crossed paths in Australia, but it wasn’t until both had established themselves in Hollywood that they got to work together. Campion eventually cast Kidman as the lead in her 1996 film The Portrait of a Lady.
Although she was delighted to be working with Campion, the actor found the filming to be an emotional experience. “As an actor, you have to be very careful with the people you choose to bare your soul to,” Kidman explained. Campion was obviously one of those people, and Kidman would reunite with her for the 2003 film In the Cut and for the second season of the series Top of the Lake. When Campion became just the third woman to ever win an Oscar for ‘Best Director’, Kidman was in the front row of the audience to congratulate her.
