Nicole Kidman doesn’t want “Boy Erased” to be erased from the zeitgeist.
The Academy Award winner co-starred alongside Russell Crowe and Lucas Hedges in the 2018 indie film about gay conversion therapy. Joel Edgerton directed the film based on Garrard Conley’s memoir; the feature earned $11.8 million at the box office.
Kidman told L’Officiel that “Boy Erased” didn’t get its time in the spotlight.
“[It was] a very small film, but for me, an important film,” Kidman said. “Did it receive all the glory it needed? No, but it definitely shined a light [on the horrors of conversion therapy]. I get so many people coming up to me saying, ‘Thank you, you helped my family by making that film.’”
Kidman added that she feels connected to most of her roles, even the ones that are taxing like “Boy Erased.”
“There are roles where I go, ‘It was so difficult, but the actual adventure of it was extraordinary’,” she said. “It’s imprinted on my psyche in a way that I can go back and dream about it and go, I was in that place and that was me.”
“The Perfect Couple” and “Babygirl” actress continued, “I obviously feel things really, really, really deeply. My mother would always say, raising me, it was raising a highly sensitive child. Part of my path in life is learning not to be so overly empathetic with people that it destroys me or sabotages me, because I can move into other people’s skin and psyche in a very weird way. It’s almost like a pull. I can physically manifest it and emotionally manifest it. It can be very, very frightening at times.”
Director Edgerton told IndieWire in 2019 that “Boy Erased” would have benefitted from a streaming release instead of theatrical.
“I realized, ‘OK, that’s a good enough reason to put a movie as soon as you can on Netflix, especially with ‘Boy Erased,’” he said. “The pride that everybody felt with that film about the ability to help start conversations within families, change points of views, make them feel differently in their lives, made me wish we could’ve just dropped it everywhere rather than holding onto it.”
