Nicole Kidman Was So ‘Pissed Off’ While Filming ‘Big Little Lies’ That She Threw a Rock Through a Window
Nicole Kidman has taken on a series of tough roles, but to play a domestic violence survivor in HBO’s “Big Little Lies” brought a new level of stress.
The Oscar winner and recent AFI Life Achievement Award recipient told The Hollywood Reporter that while filming the beloved series, she realized there really wasn’t “the time to go, ‘I need to take care of myself'” on set, which led to her being so frustrated that she threw a rock through a locked door of her house, breaking its window to get through.
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Kidman was asked about the incident during the interview.
“Whoa, that’s right!” Kidman said. “I threw a rock because [the door] was locked, and I couldn’t get in. I’d never done that in my life. I obviously [had a lot] pent up. I broke the whole thing. It cost a fortune.”
She continued, “And then I went back the next day, and I said to Alexander [Skarsg?rd] and [late director] Jean-Marc [Vallée], ‘I threw a rock through the window,’ and they were like, ‘Whoa.’ I said, ‘I was kind of pissed off.’ But there’s a way in which we operate where the show must go on, and so you just keep going — you show up and you do it and do it and do it and do it. And a lot of times, it’s six months of 12-, 14-hour days and there really isn’t the time to go, ‘I need to take care of myself.'”
The “A Family Affair” actress admitted that she had to learn how to balance her roles by jumping from serious dramatic parts to lighter comedies, or just stepping away to regroup entirely.
“I still have trouble with no,” the actress/producer said. “Part of what we do is dive into things that are deeply uncomfortable. And I’ve had to teach myself to not always go, ‘I can’t do that.’ My initial reaction can be that instead of, ‘OK, ease into it.’ Because I need to be coaxed sometimes. I’m still finding that compass.”
Kidman recently starred in Lulu Wang’s critically acclaimed Amazon series “Expats,” in which she starred as a woman in Hong Kong whose child goes missing. Kidman shared that she “went crazy” a bit trying to figure out the right balance after the series wrapped.
“After ‘Expats,’ I went and did a comedy because I went crazy with my own psychology. I was like, ‘This is unhealthy,'” Kidman said. “And it’s something that I think we need to talk about as actors — protecting your body so that you can live for as long as you are given on this earth. Because it’s very tough on the psyche.”
“Big Little Lies” ranked #11 on IndieWire’s list of Nicole Kidman’s greatest performances of all time.
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