The Oscar-nominated musical role Nicole Kidman turned down: “I thought I might lose you”
Nicole Kidman is one of those actors who doesn’t seem to possess the desire for a holiday. She is constantly starring in movies or television shows, a large percentage of which have become highly acclaimed, ranging from experimental movies like Birth and Dogville to family-friendly hits like Paddington. While Kidman doesn’t rule out any one genre, she seems drawn to complex female characters, perhaps ones who have gone through intense emotional turmoil, and she is always able to deliver a spectacularly convincing performance.
How Kidman finds the time to appear in so many excellent roles remains a mystery – one that we’ll perhaps never know the answer to. Still, it’s impressive to watch Kidman move from starkly different characters, like a sexually unsatisfied businesswoman in the erotically-charged drama Babygirl, to the voice of a mother-turned-monster in the animated kids film Spellbound. She really is one of Hollywood’s most versatile stars.
The animated movie is just the latest example of Kidman taking on a musical role, admitting that she found it “terribly intimidating” to sing in the film. It wasn’t the first time Kidman had sung in a film, of course, with the actor earning her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the tragic musical romance Moulin Rouge! in 2001.
The actor played Satine, the courtesan whom Ewan McGregor’s Christian falls in love with during his time in Paris. She was nervous to play the role, which required her to sing and dance—something she wasn’t used to doing in front of the camera.
She told British GQ: “When I got the role, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing. I get to do a musical. And Satine, I love Satine.’ And then, when we started, I was like, ‘I’m not gonna be able to deliver for him.’ Because it was like singing live, and dancing, and on top of all the comedy, and the drama, it was just sort of a… it felt like an out-of-reach film for me.”
However, before accepting the part of Satine, Kidman almost picked a different musical role – one that earned Renée Zelwegger an Oscar nomination the following year. The actor was close to starring in Chicago, released in 2002, and Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann was worried that he was going to “lose” his leading lady to the film.
Talking to Interview Magazine with Kidman, the filmmaker said, “There was a time when I thought I might lose you to Chicago. But you chose Moulin Rouge!” Kidman was perfect for the part of Satine, a charming and sophisticated woman whose life is cut short by tragedy. When she finished filming, the actor was “more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life,” adding, “I was pushing myself beyond what I’d probably be willing to ever do again because it was so much fun and because we believed in it.”
Thus, she doesn’t regret turning down the role of Roxie because, not only was she passionate about Moulin Rouge!, but Kidman also earned an Academy Award nomination for her role. Interestingly, Zellweger was also nominated that year for Bridget Jones’s Diary, but the pair lost out to Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball. The following year, when Zellweger picked up her nomination for Chicago, it was none other than Kidman that beat her with an Oscar-winning performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours.
