Credit: Far Out / Sony Pictures Releasing / Rock/Turner
It wouldn’t be crazy to call Nicole Kidman one of the most consistent actors of her generation. Since emerging in the 1980s in her native Australia, the star has appeared in countless hits, striking a perfect balance between the mainstream and those filmmakers who revel in all things subversive.
Sure, you might spot her in 2018’s Aquaman, but you can also find her in Dogville, directed by controversial auteur Lars von Trier, Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, and even in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, so clearly, Kidman has earned her stripes as an incredibly versatile star, having done musicals, comedies, horror, and, of course, many dramas, scooping up an Oscar for The Hours in 2002.
But before she reigned over Hollywood, she was a hopeful actor in Australia, desperate to make it big. While her home country has delivered many spectacular movies over the years, it has never had the dominance over the industry that American productions long have, which is why most Australian actors only make it big when they relocate to the United States.
So, after roles in Australian movies like Bush Christmas, BMX Bandits, and Dead Calm, Kidman made her Hollywood debut in 1990’s Days of Thunder alongside her soon-to-be husband, Tom Cruise. The ‘90s then proved to be a big decade for her as she began earning leading roles, with one of her most unforgettable coming in 1995 with To Die For by Gus Van Sant.
Her role as Suzanne Stone Maretto, an ambitious weather reporter whose desire to be famous takes a sinister yet darkly humorous turn, was truly brilliant, proving just how well-equipped Kidman is for a complex comedic part. Yet, landing this role was actually a rather full-circle moment for her, because it was another Van Sant movie that had inspired her move to Hollywood in the first place.
Talking to W Magazine, she revealed, “I just wanted to come to America and have the chance to try things. I was hungry. I had seen Drugstore Cowboy, and I loved it. To Die For was also directed by Gus Van Sant, and it’s so well written and so funny. I got the humour of it. I was like, ‘Come on, let me at it!’”
In fact, Kidman was desperate for the role, seeing it as the exact kind of thing she wanted for her career. Big-budget movies might have led to bigger cheques, but she didn’t find them creatively fulfilling, telling IndieWire, “I’d go on auditions and was shocked at how few complicated roles there were for women! I got Days of Thunder and then Malice with Alec Baldwin. But I was like, ‘Where are the art films and idiosyncratic filmmakers like Jane Campion? How do I work with them?’ I knew Gus’ work from seeing Drugstore Cowboy at an art cinema in Sydney. Those kind of films were basically my cinematic pull.”
Drugstore Cowboy, like To Die For, used black comedy to explore heavy themes, in this case, a group of addicts living in ‘70s Oregon. They travel across the country like cowboys, stealing to acquire enough drugs to sustain their habits, with Matt Dillon’s Bob eventually attempting to get on the straight and narrow following a fatality in the group.
Dillon would actually star alongside Kidman in To Die For as Larry, her murdered husband. So, everything worked out pretty nicely for Kidman, whose career has been going strong ever since.
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