ENTERTAIN THIS

Nicole Kidman on life after 'Big Little Lies', booed Cannes drama

Patrick Ryan
USA TODAY

It's impossible to miss Nicole Kidman at Cannes this year.

The Oscar winner has four wildly different projects premiering at the film festival in quick succession: sci-fi punk comedy How to Talk to Girls at Parties debuted on Sunday, grisly domestic drama The Killing of a Sacred Deer bowed Monday, SundanceTV miniseries Top of the Lake: China Girl Tuesday, and Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled on Wednesday.

Asked about her ubiquity on the Croisette at a Monday morning news conference, Kidman said it was merely coincidental that all four were launching at once.

"It’s not something that I was aware would happen," Kidman told journalists. "But at this stage in my life, I'm just trying to stay very bold and open and try things and support filmmakers that I believe in. ... I'm at that place in my life where I try to act as though I'm 21 and just starting my career."

Kidman is coming off some of her best reviews in years for HBO's addictive miniseries Big Little Lies, which she starred in and co-produced with Reese Witherspoon. She says the seven-part series was born of a desire to create her own opportunities.

Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright in HBO's 'Big Little Lies.'

"That's why I went and did something like Big Little Lies, because I could produce that and make that happen," Kidman said. "But a lot of the times, you're still in the position of being asked to do something or auditioning, and not in a power of position or control. I always say, an actor can't be a control freak. You really have to be able to give yourself over to the process, and be willing to be changed and be molded. And I love that."

That said, "I've worked a lot. I don't have to work," she continued. "I work because it's still my passion."

Kidman plays wife to Colin Farrell's stoic surgeon in The Killing of the Sacred Deer, Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos' polarizing followup to last year's The Lobster. The actress is haunting as a mother whose two children (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic) become mysteriously paralyzed after meeting a stalker-ish teenager (Barry Keoghan), whose father died on her husband's operating table years earlier. The psychological thriller's unsettling subject matter and graphic violence could prove too difficult for many viewers to stomach, and even earned boos from audience members at Monday's screening at Cannes.

Anna (Nicole Kidman) and Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) try to save their children in twisted comedy 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer.'

"This film, my children will not be seeing," Kidman said. "Actually, my children don't really see my films. Our family is very separate to my creative life. Occasionally, I'll do something for them where they can come on set. I did Paddington, but they have very little understanding of what my husband (country singer Keith Urban) and I do."

As an actress raising two young daughters, "I’m fortunate in the sense that I’m married to a musician, so our schedules are able to be juggled," she added. "We're able to go and pursue our artistic, creative lives, and then have a very solid home life."

The Killing of a Sacred Deer hits theaters Nov. 3.