Nicole Kidman Says There's Currently 'No Plan' for a Big Little Lies Season 3
Season 2 of Big Little Lies is on its way, but it seems that a third season may not be happening — at least for now.
On Friday, HBO executives announced at the Television Critics Association tour that Big Little Lies will return for its second season this June. For anything beyond that, however, the show’s writer David E. Kelley and cast members said there was currently “no plan” in the works.
“[There’s] no such plan now,” Kelley revealed. “We like our closure at season 2, that will probably be it.”
That prompted stars Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon to point out that a similar conversation happened after season 1 wrapped.
“That’s what you said last time!” Kidman, 51, said, as Witherspoon, 42, added in agreement, “Yeah, you sat there and said the same thing!”
However, after their faux outrage, Kidman was quick to point that a season 3 was not in the works.
“There’s no plan for it. This was a long shoot for us, an enormous amount of work, we’re amazed we can be here,” the Australian actress clarified.
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The first season, based on the book of the same name by Liane Moriarty, revolved around wealthy mothers in Northern California whose children all attend the same school. The show followed their rivalries and relationships — which ended in death.
The second season was never supposed to happen, as the first covered Moriarty’s entire book, but Kelley changed his mind after season 1’s success and once Meryl Streep agreed to join the cast for season 2.
“Last season, we didn’t close the chapter. It ended on a very open note of what’s going to happen next. … What will happen in these relationships?” Kelley said at TCA on Friday. “There was a lot of fertile storytelling to mine. Is the storytelling going to be compelling enough to rise to the first year.”
“Everybody up here can get jobs, we didn’t want to do this unless we could have a fair shot of living up to the bar we set in year one,” he added. “We were unflinching with each other about stories we thought viable and ones not good enough. We didn’t agree to set sail until we had the commitment from all of us.”
During the panel, Kidman explained that a second season was primarily due to the “enormous demand from the audience.”
“We all said goodbye, but we became very close, had such a good time doing it and the desire to spend more time together was a huge part of it, but there was an enormous demand from the audience,” the actress said. “I’ve never been in something that reached so far globally, that was such a compelling idea in terms of putting it together again … but it was generated by the audience.”
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“We’re amazed we can be here,” she added of season 2. “I will say not to compare it to the first one… it is its own entity and hopefully, it will be taken in that way. It was definitely made with an enormous amount of love.”
One of the first glimpses of what’s to come in the second season showed five central characters — Madeline Mackenzie (Witherspoon), Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), Bonnie Carlson (Zoë Kravitz), Celeste Right (Kidman), and Renata Klein (Laura Dern) — standing in what appears to be a police lineup.
All of the women are wearing the same Audrey Hepburn-inspired outfits they were at the end of last season, suggesting that the new season picks up right where things left off.
In another short clip, Streep — who joined the cast as Celeste’s mother-in-law Mary Louise Wright — seems to have a lot of questions about what became of her son Perry (Alexander Skarsgard). She demands, “I want to know what happened that night.”
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Other photos from shooting have gone viral, as well — namely those of Witherspoon throwing an ice cream cone at Streep. In the photo, Streep has her back turned as Witherspoon furiously throws the cold treat through the air at her costar.
Kidman has also revealed that her daughters with husband Keith Urban — Faith Margaret, 7, and Sunday Rose, 10 — will have cameos on the upcoming season.
Big Little Lies returns to HBO in June 2019.
