ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY AND AWARD NEWS
The Year’s Most Surprising Awards Campaign?
Any good Oscar campaign has to be nimble, ready to respond to shifts in the news cycle, or figure out what to do when your A-list director starts an endless Hollywood blood feud. But this year’s top prize might go to the team behind Cats, which debuted its first trailer over the summer to a puzzled and maybe even hostile response, and then, it seems, leaned into the skid. Its social media account got agreeably weird. It confirmed it wouldn’t screen in time for most critics’ prizes, seemingly giving up on the mantle of serious movie and going for something more fun. (News did break Wednesday that it would be eligible for the Golden Globes, making this year’s musical-comedy category that much more fascinating.) And on Tuesday it released a second, far more energetic trailer—as it happens, moments before the Little Gold Men team was set to record. Though we were tempted to discuss the trailer for the full 45 minutes, we settled for five, marveling just how much the Cats movie has captured our attention. As Joanna Robinson puts it, “People are getting excited about the madness.”
Musicals were an unintentional theme of this week’s episode, which also gets into this weekend’s Frozen II—complete with Idina Menzel–performed power ballad—and then ends with an interview with Nicole Kidman, who has followed up her stirring performance in this summer’s Big Little Lies with a supporting turn in December’s Bombshell. No, neither of those are musicals! But while talking about her work opposite Meryl Streep on Big Little Lies, she dropped a few details about their upcoming reunion in The Prom, an adaptation from Ryan Murphy of the hit Broadway musical. She’s been friends with Murphy for decades, it turned out, and they had been looking for a project to work on together—and when she went to see The Prom on Broadway, she fell for the story of a small-town high schooler who’s forbidden from taking her girlfriend to the prom, and the band of actors who travel to Indiana to support her. “In terms of just what it’s about is important,” Kidman said. “But then it’s wrapped in this gorgeous, fluffy, fun, colorful wrapping paper.”
Musicals were an unintentional theme of this week’s episode, which also gets into this weekend’s Frozen II—complete with Idina Menzel–performed power ballad—and then ends with an interview with Nicole Kidman, who has followed up her stirring performance in this summer’s Big Little Lies with a supporting turn in December’s Bombshell. No, neither of those are musicals! But while talking about her work opposite Meryl Streep on Big Little Lies, she dropped a few details about their upcoming reunion in The Prom, an adaptation from Ryan Murphy of the hit Broadway musical. She’s been friends with Murphy for decades, it turned out, and they had been looking for a project to work on together—and when she went to see The Prom on Broadway, she fell for the story of a small-town high schooler who’s forbidden from taking her girlfriend to the prom, and the band of actors who travel to Indiana to support her. “In terms of just what it’s about is important,” Kidman said. “But then it’s wrapped in this gorgeous, fluffy, fun, colorful wrapping paper.”
Kidman has earned something gorgeous and fluffy after the year she’s had, from playing abuse victim Celeste on Big Little Lies—she says that she hears often from fans of the show who want to share their own stories of abuse—to Bombshell, in which she stars opposite Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie as women who stood up against Roger Ailes over sexual harassment allegations at Fox News. In both roles, though, she had the same onscreen confidante. Robin Weigert played both Celeste’s no-nonsense therapist on Big Little Lies and a member of Gretchen Carlson’s legal team in Bombshell. There have been jokes that Kidman now requires Weigert in all of her roles. But as Kidman explained in this exclusive excerpt from the interview, when director Jay Roach told her about the casting, she was as surprised as anyone.
Katey Rich: I wanted to ask about Robin Weigert also being in Bombshell. How did that happen?
Katey Rich: I wanted to ask about Robin Weigert also being in Bombshell. How did that happen?
Nicole Kidman: I said, Jay, are you kidding me? But how beautiful that actors are allowed to go and create characters, you know? And she came in and she was totally different. I mean, that’s why she’s such a great actor. Because if you’re doing repertory theater, you’re playing all different characters and you’re always crossing paths with each other. So it’s just the same in terms of it’s like repertory film.
People joke that you have it in your contract now that you have to have a heart-to-heart with Robin Weigert in every film.
I am actually going to keep her there. [Laughs] I don’t think you recognize her.
Yeah, and she was Calamity Jane in Deadwood in between. She’s been on a great run too.
She’s really, really special. There was nothing that made me think of what we did in Big Little Lies. Like zero. We both came in and we were completely in different places, different characters, and that’s how we related. And I just enjoy her, though, as a person. She’s so generous as an actor.
She’s such a great presence onscreen.
Massive repertoire of skills. Yeah.
People joke that you have it in your contract now that you have to have a heart-to-heart with Robin Weigert in every film.
I am actually going to keep her there. [Laughs] I don’t think you recognize her.
Yeah, and she was Calamity Jane in Deadwood in between. She’s been on a great run too.
She’s really, really special. There was nothing that made me think of what we did in Big Little Lies. Like zero. We both came in and we were completely in different places, different characters, and that’s how we related. And I just enjoy her, though, as a person. She’s so generous as an actor.
She’s such a great presence onscreen.
Massive repertoire of skills. Yeah.
For more from Nicole Kidman, listen to this week’s Little Gold Men below, or subscribe anywhere else you get your podcasts. Next week we’ll have a conversation with the director of the year’s twistiest movie that doesn’t involve a poisonous peach. See you then!
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