Why more actors need to take a leaf out of Nicole Kidman’s book

Nicole Kid­man has been hailed the Queen of Cannes this year, with a whop­ping four films in con­tention at the fes­ti­val. Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer, John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Par­ties, the Jane Cam­pi­on-direct­ed TV series Top of the Lake: Chi­na Girl and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled are proof that 2017 is Kidman’s year – and she’s using this plat­form to make a bold statement.

Dur­ing an inter­view with the Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald, the Aus­tralian actor made a pledge to work with a female direc­tor every 18 months in a bid to help increase the num­ber of women work­ing in the film indus­try. ​“I think it’s nec­es­sary to say that every 18 months I’ll make a movie with a female direc­tor,” she said, ​“because that’s the only way sta­tis­tics will change, when women start to go, ​‘no, I’m actu­al­ly going to choose only a woman now.’ So every 18 months there has to be a female direc­tor in the equation.”

She then elab­o­rat­ed on the sub­ject dur­ing the press con­fer­ence for Beguiled at Cannes. ​“Only 4.2 per cent of women direct­ed the main motion pic­tures of 2016, that’s a sta­tis­tic from the Women in Film group. There were 4000 episod­ic tele­vi­sion series last year and only 183 women direct­ed them. That says it all. So I think that’s an impor­tant thing to say and keep say­ing. We as women have to sup­port female direc­tors. Hope­ful­ly it will change over time, but every­body keeps say­ing ​‘oh it’s so dif­fer­ent now, oh it’s so dif­fer­ent now’, and it just isn’t.”

Not only does Kid­man have a vest­ed inter­est in clos­ing the Hol­ly­wood gen­der gap, she also has a proven track record of tak­ing on com­plex female roles. One of 2017’s TV suc­cess sto­ries, Big Lit­tle Lies, is tes­ta­ment to this. In it, Kid­man deliv­ers a con­tem­pla­tive and nuanced per­for­mance as a pow­er­ful woman who is also a vic­tim of domes­tic vio­lence – the kind of por­tray­al we sim­ply aren’t see­ing enough of on screen.

Are we now in the midst of the Kid­manais­sance? Maybe let’s not use that term, but it’s cer­tain­ly a great time in her career. Project after project, she con­tin­ues to push for change while call­ing on her peers to fol­low suit. We need more female-dri­ven sto­ries, more women in high-pro­file cre­ative roles and there­fore more actors like Kid­man, fear­less enough (and frus­trat­ed enough) to start tak­ing a prac­ti­cal stand. All hail the Queen of Cannes.

Are you as excit­ed as we are for Kidman’s upcom­ing projects? Have your say by tweet­ing @LWLies