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28 March 2024

Aussie actress who pins all hopes on Outback epic

Nicole Kidman, Actress (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Jordan Riefe

Those of you who missed Nicole Kidman's latest epic during the Dubai International Film Festival can catch the actress return to her roots in Australia (currently showing in UAE cinemas). Emirates Business caught up with the Moulin Rouge! star to dish the dirt on roughing it out in the Outback.


Did making Australia change the way you look at your country?

I've always wanted to make such a film, since I was a little girl, that celebrated Australia. I got to explore it. I mean I've always said, 'I want to go and explore Kimberley, I want to go and see the Northern Territory', and I've just never done it. So to be able to explore them while making a film, so you're actually living in those areas and experiencing them, that was what was very precious.

And then at the same time discovering some of that history I didn't know, including the bombing of Darwin.

Can you talk about being pregnant while you were shooting and the diary you kept?

I became pregnant during the filming. But the biggest gift was getting to play this character and once again working with Baz Luhrmann because I believe he's the most innovative filmmaker working in the world today. I think Baz pushes the boundaries in terms of cinema. So probably that was the biggest gift of the film, and then obviously personally I got my daughter out of this too. I was doing a diary. I was going to release the diary and then I went, 'Oh, this is too personal, I can't release it'. And then somehow bits of it ended up in the press and so people have read little bits of it.

Can you talk about motherhood in the film?

I loved working with Brandon [Walters, 13 – in the film Kidman's character forms a motherly bond with his]. When I met Brandon he and I were both shy. I remember him standing on one side of the room and me on the other, and I thought, 'Oh my gosh'. I looked at Baz and thought, 'How are we going to get it so this boy trusts me?'

You seemed very comfortable with each other on screen.

He's not an actor so he doesn't know what he's dealing with. He doesn't know how to pretend or fake anything.

And I just sort of thought, 'OK, gently does it'. And throughout the rehearsal process I just let him come to me and slowly – I let him tell me stories, stories about where he comes from, which were just rivetting. Then he would tell me about his grandmother and his culture and slowly I think we both kind of drew each other in.

What were some of your most exciting moments from the shoot?

Well, by the time we started shooting I was so excited to see Brandon every day. He would run over to me, and usually a boy of that age isn't that affectionate. So he would run over and sort of throw his arms around my waist – I just loved being around him. And I said to him, 'you can always trust me. I'll never let you down. And we're here to give you an experience in this film and make you really great in the movie'. And I hope that's what he feels that he got from that. But as a mother myself, I think that gave me the ability to feel very comfortable around children.

Is going to live in the Outback, away from it all, something you'd like to experience again in the future?

No, I won't be experiencing it again in the near future. I think that was the point of this film for me, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I knew that I would be going up to places like Cananara and working in these conditions.

Were the working conditions as difficult as reported by the press?

To actually go to these places is very, very difficult. We've got photos of the whole crew living in these little tents in extreme heat. Obviously, I'm very fair-skinned and I'm not sort of – that's not where I'm at ease, put it that way. I got off the plane in Cananara and went, 'I'm not going to survive. This is going to be tough'.

Is it true you fainted during filming?

I was on a horse when it happened. Luckily the guy that was wrangling the horses was able to catch me. Those were the conditions but that's what we wanted to do for the film, and at the same time my character was in that environment.

Then as I adapted, my character adapted. As an actor you're taught to use what's around you, but I wouldn't take my baby there now, I knew this film for me at this time was something I'd been heading towards for a long time. And for what its worth, Hugh [Jackman] fainted too.


PROFILE: Nicole Kidman Actress

Superstar Nicole Kidman made her name in Hollywood in the thriller Dead Calm, after having already starred in a variety of Australian films.

The 41-year-old Aussie was born in Hawaii, moving to Sydney aged three.

She met first husband Tom Cruise on the set of Days of Thunder and the pair married on Christmas Eve, 1990.

During their 10-year marriage the couple adopted two children, Isabella and Connor, and starred in two other films together – Far and Away (1992) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

It was only after their divorce, however, that Kidman became a Hollywood heavyweight in her own right and won the Best Actress Oscar in 2002 for her role as Virginia Woolf in The Hours.

She married her second husband, country music singer Keith Urban, two years ago, with whom she has a five-month-old daughter, Sunday Rose.

They live in Nashville.