Nicole Kidman has spoken up about her role in Big Little Lies, pointing out the challenges of playing such a significant role.
Kidman was physically and emotionally n-ked during filming sequences in which her character frequently engaged in brutal s-x acts to please her husband Perry (Alexander Skarsgrd), seconds before (or in some cases after) being slapped, shoved, or verbally tormented. And she absorbed all of Celeste’s anguish.
Kidman told W Magazine in a recent interview that the s-x scenes/fight scenes, which were frequently unrehearsed, “felt dangerous and really upsetting,” and that she’d walk home “ashamed” afterward.
“And that’s the same emotions and the same feelings that Celeste was having, so we were very much parallel in the feelings, but I was willing to do that for the role because that’s what I felt was important for the role,” she said.
“I felt very exposed, vulnerable, and very humiliated at times,” she continued. “I mean, I remember lying on the floor in the bathroom at the very end when we were doing the scenes in episode seven, and I was lying on the floor and I just wouldn’t get up in-between takes.”
“I was just lying there, sort of broken and crying, and I remember at one point Jean-Marc coming over and just sort of placing a towel over me because I was just lying there in half-torn underwear and just basically on the ground with nothing on and I was just, like [gasps].
“But at times I would have flashes of images of women that have gone through this and I’m like, ‘This is authentic, this is the truth and this is what I have to do, and it would just come through like that.’
When the cameras stopped filming, the impact of those sentiments were difficult to shake. “I would keep on a very brave face at work and then I would go home and I didn’t realize how much it had penetrated me,” she explained. “It affected me in a deep way.”
“When I’d go home, I’d feel ashamed,” Kidman continued, “and that’s the same emotions and the same feelings that Celeste was having. So we were very much parallel in the feelings.”
Kidman said that in order to be authentic to the art, she was prepared to expose herself. “I’m here to tell the story and to be true to the art, not to bring my own problems in terms of what I feel comfortable with, not comfortable with. I’ve got to go work that stuff out so that I can come as a pure vessel to the work.”
Kidman previously told Vogue that the bruises she received during filming bothered her husband Keith Urban: “I had to take things like Advil because I was being thrown around physically. I was really bruised. At one point Keith was like ‘I’m going to take a photo of your back because it’s covered in deep, massive bruises.’ He was devastated seeing it, but then he would say, ‘But I have an artist wife!'”
The series stars Reese Witherspoon, 41, and Shailene Woodley, 25, and followed three moms whose lives begin to crumble after a single mother in their community is murdered.
Thanks for reading: Nicole Kidman felt ‘humiliated’ filming Big Little Lies’ abusive sex scenes, Sorry, my English is bad:)