A few years back Nicole Kidman starred in the critically acclaimed HBO series Big Little Lies, and when the show released she explained that while filming she at times ‘felt very exposed’ and ‘deeply humiliated’.
Kidman has just recently been in Netflix show The Perfect Couple, while she’s got movie Babygirl in the pipeline and said that at times she felt ‘ragged’ filming it.
She did also confirm that a third season of Big Little Lies is on the way so she’s been keeping very busy, but winding the clock back to 2017 when the first season released she was very candid about the way some of the show’s most challenging scenes made her feel.
The subject matter of the show is not for the faint of heart as Kidman plays Celeste Wright, a woman in an abusive relationship with husband Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), in a performance which won her an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
She spoke out about how shooting some of the sex scenes in Big Little Lies made her feel ‘very exposed’ and she would be ‘ashamed’ when she got home after filming.
Nicole Kidman said she felt ‘very exposed’ while filming some scenes in Big Little Lies (HBO)
Speaking to W magazine, Kidman praised director Jean-Marc Vallée and the response Big Little Lies got from viewers, but opened up about how shooting some of the scenes made her feel.
She said: “I felt very exposed and vulnerable and deeply humiliated at times.
“I mean, I remember lying on the floor in the bathroom at the very end when we were doing the scenes in episode seven, and I was lying on the floor and I just wouldn’t get up in-between takes.
“I was just lying there, sort of broken and crying, and I remember at one point Jean-Marc coming over and just sort of placing a towel over me because I was just lying there in half-torn underwear and just basically on the ground with nothing on and I was just, like [gasps].”
For those who let Big Little Lies pass them by, episode seven was the season finale with a lot of dramatic goings on.
Kidman won an Emmy and Golden Globe for her part in Big Little Lies, and viewers contacted her to say the show helped them understand abusive relationships (Mike Marsland/Getty Images for Omega)
However, Kidman went on to add that she would think of women who’d suffered through abusive relationships and the authenticity of it would help her carry on.
The actor continued: “But at times I would have flashes of images of women that have gone through this and I’m like, ‘This is authentic, this is the truth and this is what I have to do, and it would just come through like that’.
“But it was beautifully written, I have to say, and Jean-Marc is an exquisite director because he was able to modulate it and allow it to be and to grow and see and then sort of paste it together, you know.”
She said she was ‘here to tell the story and be true to the art’ as well as ‘come as a pure vessel to the work’.
Kidman also said that in response to the show she’d ‘received the most amazing e-mails from people ‘saying I now understand why women stay or why people stay with an abuser’, adding that ‘if that changes one person’s life, that’s amazing for me’.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, please know that you are not alone. You can talk in confidence to the national domestic violence helpline Refuge on 0808 2000 247, available 24/7, or via live chat, available 10am-10pm, Monday to Friday.
