Is Nicole Kidman Making Too Much TV?
There are actors who like to work and actors who love to work. Nicole Kidman has always belonged in the latter group. But lately, the two-time Emmy winner’s rigorous efforts to entertain have started to backfire. People are taking issue with her performances, her projects, and the overlap in each — specifically, when it comes to TV. What began as mere observations of chance similarities have escalated in recent months to reverberating reproach. Is Kidman making too much TV? Too much bad TV? Or is she simply a victim of timing and circumstance, as all famous and assiduous thespians are at one point or another?
Solving the problem (or, in this case, answering the question) begins by recognizing there is one, and in Kidman’s near-decade of steady TV work, patterns have emerged. Many of her TV picks — starting with HBO’s “Big Little Lies” in 2017 and running through this September’s Netflix series, “The Perfect Couple” — have been book adaptations. Many of those have been mysteries, and many of those fall into a subgenre of mysteries best categorized here as “unserious.” “Big Little Lies” deals with weighty themes like domestic abuse and, obviously, murder, but it’s also funny and flippant. “Nine Perfect Strangers,” another Liane Moriarty adaptation, pushes the goofy satire even further. (Kidman plays a Russian wellness counselor named Masha.) “The Perfect Couple” abandons all pretense of import in its opening title sequence.
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Fans and critics have taken note. At first, blame largely fell on the networks, since they were clearly desperate to replicate the success of “Big Little Lies.” But as the would-be successors stacked up, the tide slowly turned to the face of those efforts. “The Undoing” scored big ratings (during the peak of the pandemic), but it was rightly dismissed by critics, shrugged off by awards voters, and remembered only for Kidman’s many coats. (OK, maybe Hugh Grant left an additional mark.) Despite reuniting the Monterey super-team of Kidman, Moriarty, and screenwriter David E. Kelley, “Nine Perfect Strangers” was greeted with even worse reviews. Though it did, at least, land a renewal from Hulu (Season 2 wrapped filming this summer), unlike “Roar,” an anthology series on Apple TV+, which played better with those who saw it but was quickly canceled because of all the people who didn’t.
Each of these shows is based on a book, and all but “Roar” were modeled after “Big Little Lies.” Kidman, ever the diligent artisan, pressed on, and with two new series in 2024 fitting her now well-known template, a perfect storm approached. The vague, alternating disappointments of past projects coalesced into something more pointed. Complaints hover around common themes, both exasperated and annoyed, flummoxed and even exploited, all connecting to Kidman.
The Guardian kicked things off in January with a review of “Expats” that led with, “We’ve seen Kidman wafting about as a sad, privileged woman far, far too many times.” Decider shared a similar sentiment, somehow even more bluntly: “All we’re seeing is Depressed Nicole Kidman once again.” Even a massive tonal swing between the Prime Video original drama and Netflix’s unabashed soap opera couldn’t put an end to the trend. “‘The Perfect Couple’ feels like Kidman on autopilot,” said The Hollywood Reporter. The AVClub’s negative review widened the lens: “Kidman is a welcome sight, but her TV shows might not be because they’re starting to feel too similar.” And then there’s Slate, always ready with a sweeping hot take, calling out “Nicole Kidman’s Beach-Read Cinematic Universe.”
All those “gorgeous but brittle matriarch[s] ripped from the bestseller shelves” (as THR puts it) are clearly adding up. But, as Slate concludes, Kidman has earned the right to “coast” if she wants to; after an Oscar, a SAG Award, and two Emmys — not to mention billions in box office receipts and untold minutes viewed over 40 years in the biz — there’s nothing left for her to prove in film or television. If she wants to make trashy mysteries with people she likes, she can bury the bad reviews under the tens of millions of dollars she made from them.
And yet, it’s not that simple. Kidman isn’t just coasting. She isn’t just making trashy mysteries. She isn’t just doing any one thing, even if it feels like she’s doing the same thing over and over. Yes, she may be making too much TV — meaning, if she made less, the aforementioned complaints may never have cropped up to begin with — but she’s also approaching her TV career in the same way she approaches her film career. And that’s very, very good in one respect, and kinda bad in another.
First the good: Back in 2017, at the Cannes Film Festival, Kidman was promoting two major projects (Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” and Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake: China Girl”) when she vowed to work with more women directors. Specifically, she promised to work with women directors every 18 months — a benchmark she’s met and continues to meet. Since 2018, she’s made two films with a female director (“Destroyer” and the upcoming “Babygirl”). But in TV, six of Kidman’s eight series have had a woman serving as director or lead writer. Four have women in both roles (and it’s five if you count the second season of “Big Little Lies,” which was officially helmed by Andrea Arnold).
Without getting too far into the weeds, the disparity between Kidman’s collaborations with women in film vs. television can be explained by the boom in TV production happening at the time, as well as the kinds of stories the medium has long supported. It’s much harder to get a greenlight for a feature adaptation of “Big Little Lies,” “The Perfect Couple,” or “Expats” than it is to get a streamer to commit to a limited series. (Her production company, Blossom Films, backed three films from 2010-2015 and none since. Instead, it’s backed all seven of her TV shows since “Big Little Lies,” plus the Elizabeth Olsen-led Max series, “Love and Death.”) So if Kidman wants to work often (which she does) and she wants to work with women directors (which she does), then why not go where the money is and hope for the best?
Still, her admirable intentions don’t actually address her critics’ primary complaints. Audiences are responding to Kidman’s onscreen presence, not her frankly marvelous inclusion efforts and overall philanthropy. To keep viewers happy, she still needs to choose rich roles, not rich ($$$) roles. Couldn’t she be using her A-list status to elevate more distinct stories directed by women? Do they all have to seem only a few degrees removed from “Big Little Lies”? Why does her approach to TV have to be so unvaried?
Fair questions, to be sure, but there’s an argument to be made that her approach is as varied as ever. Just look at her recent work: Kidman’s last three films are “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “A Family Affair,” and “Babygirl” — a blockbuster action sequel, a streaming rom-com, and an indie festival darling. Her last three TV shows are “Lioness,” “The Perfect Couple,” and “Expats” — a blockbuster action series, a streaming soap opera, and an indie festival darling. Debate all you want about how distinct Kidman’s characters are in each project, but the projects themselves aren’t that similar, and the same can be applied to a holistic view of the actor’s resume. You have to skip outliers like “Lioness,” “Roar,” and “Top of the Lake” to connect the dots between “Big Little Lies,” “The Undoing,” “Nine Perfect Strangers,” and “The Perfect Couple.”
What makes it so easy to skip those shows — and thus what makes it so easy for people to only see the similarities in Kidman’s TV work — is that the outliers are also way less popular than her other shows. “Top of the Lake: China Girl” aired on SundanceTV, a network only available on specialized cable and satellite packages. “Roar” is on Apple TV+, which is widely considered to have a much smaller audience than streamers like Hulu and Netflix. “Lioness” did set ratings records when it premiered… on Paramount+, and those records were almost immediately surpassed by Taylor Sheridan’s next show.
Stars, by and large, are defined by their successes, and — setting aside “Lioness” streaming stats — none of these shows were successful. They didn’t even earn Kidman awards recognition, which has helped to diversify her work on the big screen over the decades. (“The Hours” was not a hit, but Kidman will always be tied to it thanks to her Oscar win.) That’s what makes “Expats” such an interesting part of the case study. On paper, Margaret Woo sounds like many of Kidman’s other TV roles: a sad woman of privilege. But when complaining about Kidman’s TV work, Ms. Woo often has to be explained away because “Expats” is much more formally ambitious, much more emotionally complex, and thus lends its lead a much deeper resonance. It’s just that if no one saw it, then no one felt it either.
Many of Kidman’s weirder film work earns her credibility in cinema circles, whether it’s in indies like “Birth” or breakouts like “Moulin Rouge!” The one exception is in streaming. Movies like “The Prom” and this year’s “A Family Affair” are often memory-holed. It’s like they don’t exist — not to film nerds, and often, not in the general audiences’ memories. TV that doesn’t stick is treated similarly. For “Roar,” she plays the woman who eats photographs. For “Top of the Lake,” she looks like this. “Expats” is also weird, just on a lower register: Margaret rents a secret apartment that she only uses to clean and take baths. That’s weird! That’s rich! That’s Kidman pushing herself as a performer! But these shows aren’t part of the public consciousness in the way that “Big Little Lies,” “The Undoing,” and “The Perfect Couple” are or (most likely) will be.
Whether or not the culture appreciates her work is beyond Kidman’s control, for the most part, but it does bring us to an important aspect that is: time. Even if Kidman’s approach to television mirrors her approach to film, time is a key difference she may need to recognize. With movies, audiences only spend two hours with a character. In television, audiences live with that character. More time with an actor creates more familiarity. Watching an eight-hour limited series over seven weeks, or one weekend, or even eight straight hours creates an intimacy, a connection, or at least an awareness that’s hard to shake. Toss in Kidman’s ongoing series and suddenly viewers feel closer to her than ever.
I wouldn’t be surprised if part of Kidman’s post-“Big Little Lies” renaissance stemmed, at least a little bit, from our sudden proximity to her; that after decades of only glimpsing her for a few hours every year or so, that spending eight hours with her, in our homes, made her all the more appealing. But there’s a catch: If viewers sense their close relationship is being taken for granted — say, by churning out the same show over and over, or playing the same character again and again, always with diminishing returns — then they’re going to get upset! They’re going to complain. And we’re going to end up right here, where things stand today.
Kidman likely doesn’t deserve to be criticized for her recent work in TV. “Expats” is incredible. “The Perfect Couple” is fine. Neither would exist without her, and she’s certainly not phoning in her performances when they matter. (Anyone upset over her work in “The Perfect Couple” is barking up the wrong tree.) Maybe her hits are too similar, but they’re still hits. She’s giving the people what they claim to want, even if by now, after one too many copycats, it’s a bit clearer that audiences don’t know what they want. They may say they want another “Big Little Lies,” but they’re really asking to feel how they during the first season. So giving them less TV isn’t the answer, not for Kidman and not for us. Better to just ride out this minor bit of backlash — and maybe pick a role where she’s poor and happy, rather than rich and sad.
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