Nicole Kidman brings Hollywood home with latest show: ‘Australians need to see their own culture’
The Oscar winner’s lifelong mission has been realised with the release of her new show. Could her collaboration with powerhouse forces Liane Moriarty and Bruno Papandrea spark Australian TV’s own Big Little Lies?
Book clubs have become a fixture of self-imposed cultural education – typically a Sunday afternoon spent in the company of Zeitgeist reads, teacakes and good friends.
But in what is shaping to be the most powerful book club in the world, actor Nicole Kidman and producer Bruna Papandrea have again teamed up to elevate to the screen the latest work from author Liane Moriarty, this time enlivening the author’s idiosyncratic characters and mysterious plotlines to their rightful place: on Australian soil. A fictional island off Sydney’s Hawkesbury River, to be exact.
The Last Anniversary is the third collaboration between the powerful Australian triumvirate – Moriarty, Kidman and her Blossom Films; and Papandrea’s Made Up Stories production house – following the runaway success of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers.
Speaking to Review from her Nashville home, Kidman is between preparing her kids’ post-Spring Break return to school and herself for a day of filming an action sequence for an undisclosed production. She says the show, airing this month on Binge, is a last anniversary in its own respect: it is her final collaboration with Foxtel’s Brian Walsh, the television executive who oversaw the project prior to his death in 2023.
The pair’s friendship has spanned decades, the Oscar-winner recalls, sparked by her early days on screen in films such as Vietnam and Bangkok Hilton.
“We’ve come full circle,” Kidman says, laughing. “He was there at the beginning of my career and all the way through to this final show.”
It’s a bittersweet moment, Kidman notes, adding she is thrilled to help bring the bestselling Australian author’s highly acclaimed works, which have been until now supplanted in overseas productions, back home.
“(Brian) wanted the rights to The Last Anniversary badly, so it was like, ‘OK, this has to land here.’ At one point other people were bidding on it and I just said to him – ‘This is you, you want it’. He was so passionate about it,” Kidman says.
Adaptations of Moriarty’s books have never seen the NSW shores on which they’re set, until now. Big Little Lies was relocated from Sydney’s northern beaches to California’s glamorous Monterey; Nine Perfect Strangers, while filmed in Byron Bay, ultimately was set for TV in a haunting US West Coast retreat.
Kidman, with co-producer Per Saari, sought out the novel in 2019, putting it into production four years later. In part, the Oscar winner was keeping the first promise she made to Moriarty years ago to create one of her adaptations at home.
“Australians need to see their own culture,” Kidman says. “I did growing up, and it’s such an important part of being Australian.
“If that falls apart, that’s very detrimental to our industry here and to Australia as a country.”
The series begins in the 1930s, as sisters Connie and Rose Doughty set out to visit their neighbours Jack and Alice Munro, only to discover they’ve vanished – leaving their newborn baby, Enigma, in their care. Fast-forwarding to the present, when Connie passes away, leaving a trail of secrets in her wake, the family has turned the strange phenomenon of the disappearance into a lucrative business, and their lives revolve around maintaining the mystique. Cousins, siblings – and the addition of Sophie, the former partner of one of Enigma’s grandchildren – begin to interact, unravelling a truth deeper than the main mystery at its core. Sophie is left Connie’s house in a twist that kicks off a string of interactions, submerging her in a new life, with both a promise that she’ll meet her one true love on the island, while serving a new role as an outsider in the intricate family business.
The second book in Moriarty’s 10-strong cannon was born long before the author became synonymous with bestseller lists. Then, she was spending her time between fiction and freelance writing about the Railway and Transport Health Fund.
For her, seeing the book now on screen feels like a time warp.
“I was a different person when I wrote that book,” Moriarty tells Review.
Of all of Moriarty’s books, it is one of her most personal – an interwoven tale of family secrecy, inspired by the brilliant storytelling of her now deceased grandmother.
“I either became single in the middle of writing it or I was definitely single by the time I finished it, so, like the character of Sophie, I could feel that biological clock ticking.”
Australian TV series, of course, are not as rare as they used to be – the decades-long duopoly of Home and Away and Neighbours was upended by the advent of streaming giants, bound by local content production quotas that have spawned a flurry of quality shows. In a single year, Heartbreak High’s reboot and Boy Swallows Universe, the adaptation of Trent Dalton’s bestselling book, both cracked Netflix’s global top 10 watch lists.
For Papandrea, who first turned the pages of Big Little Lies into a multi award-winning two-season spectacular in 2017, this third collaboration is differentiated not just by its production location but the “intergenerational tale” it sets out to tell.
“The complexity of this family (in the story) was the thing that attracted me most,” she says. “It was an opportunity to put older women on screen – the world is ageing and there’s a really big audience being underserved.”
Papandrea’s career has focused on elevating the stories of women through book adaptations – Gone Girl, Wild and Anatomy of a Scandal, among others. She admits, as a transplant to US shores from her late 20s (she grew up in Adelaide as the daughter of a single mother), she’d never heard of Moriarty until she was handed Big Little Lies. But Papandrea says it is the way the author’s stories capture the essence of layered narratives with women at the centre that had propelled her company co-founded with Reese Witherspoon, Pacific Standard, and subsequent production house Made Up Stories.
“In a way, (The Last Anniversary) is Moriarty’s most iconically Australian book,” she says.
“There’s a sense of nostalgia about this one and it was very important to us to ensure it leveraged Australian locations and talent.”
Papandrea, among her co-producers, wanted the show to treat the Hawkesbury River – a mangrove-laden inlet – as a character in its own respect.
The grand Hollywood scale of the series on an Australian budget is visualised by the cinematography of Rob Marsh, known for his work in Avatar: The Way of Water, Thor: Ragnarok and The Hobbit.
The lush landscape around the wending river is an important force itself in the story, though Moriarty admits “writing landscapes is not my strength”.
“I look out my window and I think, ‘What’s that tree? I’m not good at that’,” she says chuckling.
“But I couldn’t see this book turning into a show anywhere else. When it first came out, people would get in touch with NSW Tourism and ask for directions to Scribbly Gum Island, which doesn’t exist – so I loved that.”
Another standout of this adaptation is the notable absence of a starring credit from Kidman. When asked about the decision to produce and not act in the show, her response is straightforward: “I don’t want to be in everything – and I can’t!
“I wanted to do something in Australia that gets made and doesn’t require me to be in it – that’s a great thing to be able to offer as producers,” she explains, citing Blossom Films entering its 15th year of operation.
“I want to create roles for other women that are incredible and I can stand back and say ‘go for it’. That’s always been my desire.”
It rings true for the cast, led by Teresa Palmer as the regency romance-loving Sophie, a journalist who splits her time between dangerous curiosity for her new home with swift checks of her watch each moment she meets a potential suitor to document if it becomes the moment she met the love of her life. She is flanked by the aptly named Enigma (Helen Thomson) who serves as the abandoned baby turned host of the family’s tourism attraction; acerbic granddaughter Veronika (Danielle Macdonald); Grace (Claude Scott-Mitchell) a young mother grappling with postpartum depression; Margie (Susan Prior) a quietly neurotic housewife; and the dreamy Aunt Rose (Miranda Richardson), who combine forces in a nuanced portrayal of a family concealing their deepest secrets.
The Last Anniversary features a type of bleak humour that is, as the author says, unapologetically Australian.
“I don’t know how you actually put it into words but you know it when you see it,” Moriarty says, laughing. “There’s always something funny even in the darkest moments, and I think it’s important to confront that in fiction. It’s real – and it’s human, and we can’t open up a dialogue without representing that authentically.
The decorated author who has sold more books worldwide than there are people living in Australia is not deaf to the struggles of antipodean authors. In 2022, the National Survey of Australian Book Authors declared the average annual income for fiction writers was just $18,200.
“We’re a small country with a small population – it’s hard to make a living in it. It’s just a fact of life,” she says.
“I think Australian readers are ready to embrace Australian writing. I don’t actually know what the answer is to ensure we survive, because smaller attention spans are a whole other issue and that’s consuming us, too.”
Moriarty admits the impact on reading has influenced her own narrative style.
“My next book’s going to be shorter, actually,” she says. “I just have really found that people are turning away from the huge, long read.”
Despite the declaration to commit to simpler stories, Moriarty’s knack for intricate novels doesn’t seem to be going away. Her latest book Here One Moment, released last year, was a musing on a series of characters stuck on a plane and confronted by a stranger with their “death date”.
“I mean I’m always criticised for having too many characters in my novels,” she admits.
It’s a stark critique in a cultural climate that dismisses female-authors as being proponents of vapid “chick-lit”. Moriarty brushes off the notion.
“I’ve just always loved (writing multiple perspectives),” she says, laughing, “I’m always telling myself ‘Next time, just write one character’s point of view’. And I never do it – and then I end up with Nine Perfect Strangers.”
Television appears the last bastion of hope among the attention-deficit economy. In one respect, minds are consumed by rapid-fire social media content, engaging them for fleeting minutes; on the other, a slew of lengthy feature films have emerged as a resistance, forcing audiences into chairs for up to four hours at a time.
It’s where the small screen finds its strength – extended sugar hits of entertainment and intrigue, spanned over multiple instalments, and where Papandrea says her production style finds its hooks. “We make TV shows like films – one filmmaker across the season, one central voice, mostly,” she explains. The Binge series combines the forces of Sam Strauss as the primary screenwriter with director John Polson, who rose to fame alongside Kidman.
“Getting John to come back to Australia, after mainly working in America the last 20 years, was a huge deal,” Papandrea says. “I like to think it was me that convinced him – but he and Nicole started their acting careers together, so I guess that really got him back.”
Polson, who’s split his time in front of and behind the camera, is no stranger to mysteries, bringing cult series Lie to Me, The Mentalist, The Walking Dead and Elementary to life.
Papandrea continues: “We know the best things that can come out of Australia, where Australia is a real character in it. And these stories can stand on the world stage, and give you what you want from a global TV show. John knows how to do that.”
Papandrea entered the film industry during the 90s, a hostile environment for women that she says she was fortunate to escape under the tutelage of industry legends Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, “two of the best men in the business”.
She doesn’t deny the lingering echoes of a “boys club” in Hollywood, however, something she says emerges in the pitching process.
“There’s still a big double standard in terms of those choices and how much space there is, even though more female-led content is emerging.”
Perhaps that’s the enduring appeal of Moriarty’s books and the adaptations that follow; a machine that keeps on giving, illuminating the stories female – and male — audiences have sought out for decades.
Productions by the world’s most powerful book club are not measured by their commercial success and the ability to glue millions of eyeballs to a screen. For Moriarty it’s a lot deeper than that.
“It has been such a pleasure for me to have made new friends, which is not something I ever thought would happen,” she says.
“As an author, you don’t really meet many new colleagues. It’s just you, and when I handed (the book rights) over, I thought that’d be it.”
Moriarty assumed she’d be sucked into a Hollywood whirlpool, relinquishing the world she loved and created.
“I thought they might be more cynical before I had any involvement with Hollywood. I actually found it inspiring that they just love what they do,” she says.
“They feel passionate about every project, so I guess my initial scepticism makes me sound a little bit Hollywood (myself).”
Kidman echoes the adoration, depicting the long walks on Sydney’s Balmoral beach the pair go on whenever they’re both in the Emerald City, trailed by conversations about anything other than work. “Liane is incredibly funny. We’ve got kids the same age, we’ve been through such similar things and it’s just lovely,”Kidman says.
As the group prepares to release The Last Anniversary to the public, with the third season of Big Little Lies based on an upcoming sequel penned by Moriarty and season two of Nine Perfect Strangers in the throes, Papandrea says the success of the collaboration comes down to a respect for Moriarty’s craft.
“She’s a novelist – we’ve asked her a million times whether she wants to write the outline for a TV show and she isn’t (interested),” says the producer.
“So we take it seriously that she’s a dear friend to all of us, and unless she really is averse to something she might tell us, but that hasn’t really happened.”
Papandrea pauses briefly and concedes that, actually, there is one request Moriarty made.
“She’s famously said ‘Go get me Meryl Streep for Big Littles Lies season two’,” she says, laughing. “So we did.”
For Papandrea, The Last Anniversary is the most special collaboration yet.
“I feel this is the first show I’ve made – and I’ve made a few – that my young daughter and my mother are going to love. We’re all going to watch it together,” she says.
As for the age-old question of whether the book or the adaptation is better, Papandrea laughs when she says: “I can’t answer that.”
The Last Anniversary premieres on Binge on March 27.
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