Nicole Kidman may stay booked and busy, but that doesn’t mean things are all that easy for her. In today’s difficult entertainment industry landscape, she’s had as much trouble as any getting projects sold, let alone actually made.
“Everything’s hard now. Actually everything. I mean, maybe not ‘Deadpool,’ but there’s nothing that’s, ‘Oh my gosh. Yep. This is it. Greenlight, let’s go.’ Or maybe it’s just the things that I do,” Kidman said in a recent interview for Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue. “I just think that’s the nature of what we’re dealing with now. Things are shrinking in terms of shows being done and films being made. I definitely feel it. I’m sure most people in the industry feel it. I know the crews feel it. I know writers feel it.”
Despite this tumult, Kidman has been in this business long enough to know that every job is your last job and you just have to keep on picking up and starting over.
“You’re just along for the ride, and it is very much ups and downs and roller coasters, and you just go, ‘Hold on tight.’ It’s what I try to teach my kids because I don’t know what their futures are: Hold on and go for it and take the opportunities when they arise and jump in and try something,” said Kidman. “The worst you can do is fail. That may be humiliating, but at least you don’t go, ‘Gosh, I wish I’d tried that, and I regret that I didn’t.’”
Rather than be beholden to fear, Kidman feels it’s best to just find strong collaborators who can motivate you to do the hard work. On powering through difficult times, she said, “I think it requires more aligning with the right people and pooling our resources and choosing to not spread yourself too thin so that you have the energy and the desire to keep moving forward. But it’s always been hard. I mean, I started at 14, so I’ve seen a lot now.”
Kidman is also trying to put that institutional knowledge to good use by putting her talent at the disposal of female filmmakers. Earlier in the interview, she said, “I’m trying to support all of these women at all different ages, at all different stages in their careers, put my weight behind them and go, ‘I’m here and I’m at your disposal and I’m ready.’”
