The director who shaped Nicole Kidman’s entire career: “The first person to take me under her shoulder”
It’s difficult enough for any aspiring actor or filmmaker to make it to the very top of the industry on their own, but Nicole Kidman has found herself in the rare position of being able to share that journey with two of her closest friends, who ended up taking very similar trajectories.
The star and Naomi Watts first met on the set of 1991’s coming-of-age dramedy Flirting – in what was only the latter’s second screen credit – and they’ve remained inseparable ever since, with Watts becoming an acclaimed and in-demand performer in her own right with two Academy Award nominations to her name.
On the other side of the camera, a future two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker became one of Kidman’s earliest backers before they had ever come close to making it big. They’ve also remained constantly in contact as they navigated the ruthless world of cinema to master their chosen fields.
When Kidman was a teenager attending drama school and picking up parts in local productions, Jane Campion was in film school with her eyes on becoming a director, putting them into each other’s path for the first time. It wouldn’t be for another two decades that they’d end up working together, but they remained in touch throughout their respective ascents.
In an interview with The Talks, Kidman reflected on how she “came from a slightly different background in terms of filmmaking,” where she was “in a little drama school and a lot of directors were writing for me.” The parts in Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm and Australian miniseries Vietnam were penned specifically for her to play, but she rightly felt “there certainly wasn’t a huge number of women directing at the time.”
Campion came along at the perfect moment for Kidman, becoming “the first person to sort of take me under her shoulder.” Not only that, but The Crying Game and The Power of the Dog director “was a huge part of shaping me and is still one of my very, very close friends. She is still shaping me!”
Off-screen closeness doesn’t necessarily mean they were going to become the Antipodean Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, though, with the pair only collaborating on one feature. 1996’s The Portrait of a Lady is their one and only movie together so far, but Kidman did successfully lobby for a part in the sequel series Top of the Lake: China Girl, meaning it would be an understatement to say they haven’t needed to be symbiotic in order to succeed.
Four decades of friendship, and they remain the firmest of friends. They are the first to congratulate each other on the consistent success that’s seen both of their trophy cabinets continue to fill up with the most prestigious accolades in the business.