Nicole Kidman on how her recent roles have changed her life and her fanbase

IT’S taken the world decades to figure out who Nicole Kidman is but now the Australian actress seems to have finally found her niche — and her fanbase.

IT’S taken the world nearly 50 years to figure out the truth about Nicole Kidman. She’s a warm, friendly, funny woman.

Her off screen persona often described as cold and distant, most likely due to the many brittle and frosty roles she’s played in her career, has finally diminished. “This year has been a very strange year for me. Because of Lion, which was so emotional, and Big Little Lies, my relationship with people have changed dramatically. It’s been really intense.”

Nicole Kidman received an Oscar nomination for her role in the film Lion.

“Literally, women have been coming up to me, holding me and crying after they watched Big Little Lies. And with Lion, there were a lot of mothers, particularly ones that had adopted children wanting to talk to me so there was that connection,” she says.

“More than anything, Big Little Lies is a role that has given me such a connection to people that I am blown away by it. Women telling me their deep, dark secrets and revealing things about themselves that I go, ‘Okay, I am going to honour this.’

Playing an abused wife is familiar territory due to the work she does with the U.N. (as a spokeswoman for Say NO-UniTE to End Violence against Women initiative).

“Yes, I’ve done a lot of work for them and so I have the language that is needed for handling some of the women that approach me about it.”

Nicole Kidman in a gritty scene from Big Little Lies.

Chatting with her at the Cannes Film Festival, it seems there was no escaping Kidman this year. Whether she was dazzling on the red carpet or in her performances in three movies: Sofia Coppola’s southern melodrama, The Beguiled, the punk themed, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and the bizarre but brilliant, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster). She was also promoting Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake, in which she returns to her curly-tressed locks (albeit a grey wig).

Kidman with actress Elle Fanning and director Sofia Coppola at the Cannes screening for The Beguiled. Picture: Alberto Pizzoli

Kidman, just shy of 50, is enjoying the prime of her career.

It’s the afternoon after the tragic terrorist attack at Ariana Grande’s Manchester concert when a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including 7 children. A moment of silence was declared in Cannes. Accordingly, our interview is on pause for a few minutes. Her eyes well up, she collects herself and we resume.

“I won’t have another film coming out now for about five years because they’re all coming out at once,” she smiles. “I was like, ‘They are all at the Cannes Film Festival?’ And also, for Top of the Lake, to have an Australian TV series shown here is so great, especially for Jane [Campion].

Kidman poses with actress Gwendoline Christie, director Jane Campion and actress Elisabeth Moss to promote the TV series Top Of The Lake. Picture: Loic Venance

There is Oscar buzz about her performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer in which she plays a doctor and wife of a cardiac surgeon (Colin Farrell) who find themselves in an unthinkable predicament.

She says, “Keith [Urban] watched it for the first time at the premiere and he was shaken to the ground. We were lying in bed after it, and I was like, ‘We have got to go to sleep now!’ But he wouldn’t stop talking about it. He just wouldn’t stop. It was amazing. He said it was torturous but at the same time, he was riveted,” she says. “Actually, he needed to go to the bathroom from the beginning of the film, but he said that no way was he leaving.” She laughs. “ That is always a really good sign.”

Kidman with her husband Keith Urban at the screening of The Killing of A Sacred Deer. Picture: Andreas Rentz

Kidman has been to the festival many times. Surprisingly, she isn’t jaded or world weary of her hectic and glamorous obligations. For a celebrity, it can be a little tiresome.

“Well, I don’t feel like a celebrity. I feel like I am a working actress, I really do,” she says. “I feel like I am part of a community and every now and then some things are celebrated and then other times they’re not. I remember being here for Moulin Rouge (in 1991) and there was a mixed reaction to it from the audience. But then slowly there became this groundswell and it got nominated for an Academy Award so you never know what’s going to happen.

“Walking through the streets, and all the photographers, and the red carpet gives me flashbacks of the times I’ve been here, I have moments where I think, ‘I’ll remember this forever.’” She smiles. “Being here still takes my breath away,” she ends.

Kidman seems to have finally found her niche. Picture: Anne-Christine Poujoulat

Originally published as Nicole Kidman on how her recent roles have changed her life and her fanbase