Nicole Kidman Knows She Would Be a ‘Terrible Director’

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Nicole Kidman may find that even heartbreak feels good in a movie theater, but the Oscar-winning actress is not going to find herself directing one of those films for the silver screen.

Kidman told The Hollywood Reporter while being honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award that she is aware of the fact that she “would be a terrible director” — in part due to her indecisiveness. Kidman has produced a slew of TV series such as “Big Little Lies,” “Nine Perfect Strangers,” “The Undoing,” “Love & Death,” “Special Ops: Lioness,” and “Expats” through her Blossom Films banner. She’s pretty good at that.

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“I feel like I would be a terrible director because I always have so many ideas. A director has to make choices, and that’s not my strong suit,” Kidman said. “I’m very good at being passionate and supporting the voices and reading a script and going, ‘I love this script,’ or seeing somebody and going, ‘I love this actor, I love this director, how do I support them?’ And they maybe have done nothing [before], but I want to get behind them. That’s what I love doing; it excites me, and it really makes me happy. I love shining the light on other people or helping to do that.”

During the AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony, Kidman thanked her former collaborators, like directors Jane Campion, Phillip Noyce, Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier, Yorgos Lanthimos, and more.

“There are so many little weird films I’ve done, and I know there are people out there … who stuck up for my weird choices, and I’m so grateful for that,” Kidman said. “I’d like to think I’m getting started, but it’s not true, because, really, let’s just hope I’m in the middle. I’ve got my fingers crossed. There are so many more exciting young directors and writers and voices that are completely original and need to be heard, and they have a lot to say… I’m here and ready to roll up my sleeves.”

But despite Kidman shrugging off the idea of directing anything, director Van Sant recently told the New York Times that Kidman practically served as a “second director” on the set of 1995 dark comedy “To Die For.”

“I thought she was incredibly dedicated to making a fantastic performance through study of the script and the part, in a way I had never seen before,” Van Sant said. “There were notebooks, and scene exercises, and voice exercises — it was very thorough. Nicole was so versed in the scenes that she was like having a second director there, who helped with the kids that we had playing her students, and it was a very welcomed help that she gave with them.”

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