By Topher Gauk-Roger
2:18am PST, Dec 22, 2021
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Nicole Kidman scored her fifth Oscar nomination — and won her fifth Golden Globe — for her work as Lucille Ball in "Being the Ricardos," the 2021 biopic centered around the "I Love Lucy" star and her relationship with real-life and on-screen husband Desi Arnaz.
This behind-the-scenes shot shows Nicole getting her lipstick touched up on the set of the Aaron Sorkin-helmed drama — and shows her remarkable resemblance to the history-making late actress.
Nicole also scored Critics Choice and SAG Award nominations for her work in the film.
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Nicole Kidman earned raves for her portrayal of beloved English author Virginia Woolf alongside Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore in 2002's "The Hours." In order to play the writer in 1920s England, she famously wore a prosthetic nose, making her look almost unrecognizable as the character who struggles with depression and mental illness while trying to write a novel. Despite the physical changes, Nicole was quick to point out that her focus was bringing the character to life from the inside out. "[I] try to create who she is through just being her rather than trying to change physically, even though I wore the nose, even though all of those things," she told the Los Angeles Times in 2003. "They were the next layer, whereas the first thing was inside." The hard work paid off: She won numerous awards for her performance including her first BAFTA Award, her third Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for best actress.
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Most fans had to do a double take upon seeing Nicole Kidman in the 2018 crime-drama "Destroyer," which saw the star take a very dark turn to play a former undercover police officer who exacts revenge against members of a gang years after her case was blown. She once again donned prosthetics that changed her nose and bone structure, topped off with a short, choppy brunette wig. To truly throw audiences off her scent, she also sported a bland uniform of wrinkled T-shirts and unflattering jeans. As Nicole told The Wrap that year, she wanted to make sure her performance wasn't only about the makeover. "As an actor, I'm so protective of my characters, so it hurts my feelings if the nose is… about that performance," she told the outlet about her Golden Globe Award-nominated work. "If it's brought down to the physical, then I didn't do my job properly… it's my job to push through all of that."
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2012's "The Paperboy" saw Nicole Kidman give a hypersexualized portrayal of Charlotte, a death row groupie smitten with a criminal charged with murder and determined to prove his innocence so they can wed. That is, until she finds out he may not be the misunderstood romantic she hoped for. The drama co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Zac Efron received a mixed response from critics though most were quick to endorse Nicole's performance. The Guardian wrote that "Nicole Kidman really is terrifically good as Charlotte: funny, sexy, poignantly vulnerable," and she scored another Golden Globe Award nomination for her work. The film saw the star trade in her high-fashion preferences for a double dose of hairspray, eyeliner and body-contouring minis. She explained at the time that the costumes are what really set the stage for her, telling Eye For Film, "There was no budget for the wardrobe. So you're going and looking at these kind of odd shops and, you know, vintage stores. Anywhere that you can get things for five bucks, so everything was authentic."
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In the 2016 drama "Lion," Nicole Kidman sported a short, curly red wig to play the adoptive mother of a young Indian boy who was separated from his birth family. The true story required the star to look reminiscent of the real woman she was portraying, an ordinary housewife in Tasmania, so a less red carpet ready appearance was necessary. As she told Town & Country that year, she makes it a habit to completely devote herself to her roles to allow the transformation to really take hold. "It's a huge leap of faith. I just trust and believe and off we go," she told the magazine. "I'm never guarded once I'm in. It's how I choose to live. It would probably be easier and safer to be more guarded, but that's just not me." Her performance nabbed great reviews, with the Chicago Sun-Times calling it "as good as anything she's done in the last decade," and garnered her her fourth career nomination for an Academy Award.
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2019's "Bombshell" saw Nicole Kidman playing another well-known public figure: journalist Gretchen Carlson. The drama co-starring Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie depicts the scandal concerning the sexual harassment accusations against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Nicole looks startlingly similar to the television anchor, predominantly with the help of one very expensive wig. As reported by Insider, the one hairpiece alone ran between $7,000 and $10,000, primarily because of the labor cost, hairstylist Anne Morgan told The Washington Post. "Labor makes up the bulk of that cost. Each hair is hand-tied one by one," she told the newspaper. The price tag was worth it as the film earned the Academy Award for best makeup and hairstyling, while Nicole received another Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
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Following her highly publicized divorce from Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman starred in the 2002 thriller "Birthday Girl." It came as no surprise that she came back with a role unlike anything she'd done before, sporting slick black hair and dark makeup to play a Russian mail-order bride who turns the life of a bored English bank clerk upside down in numerous ways. Not only did the star have to create a new image, but she also had to learn to speak Russian for the part. The film wasn't a major success with critics or at the box office, but as she told CNN, it was a great way to restart her career after entering a new chapter of her life. "In some ways I've changed and in some ways I've kind of come back to my core, like who I am in a weird way," she told the outlet.
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2004's "The Stepford Wives" served as a remake of the 1975 film of the same name. The dark comedy sees Nicole Kidman play a television executive who leaves the big city for a suburban town filled with women she begins to suspect are being brainwashed. The actress has to take on two very different personas for the flick: the tough businesswoman who enjoys wearing pantsuits and the color black, decked in a short brunette bob, as well as a robotic '50s-inspired housewife who dons bright dresses and heels complete with long flowing blonde hair. Reviewers weren't kind to the film, but it served as a great showcase for Nicole's versatility as an actress and how she uses her flaws to inspire her art. "I think the movie is saying that happiness can't be found through perfection or even trying to achieve it," she told The Morning Call of "The Stepford Wives." "I'm nowhere near perfect, and I'm not ever trying to be. Actually, the thing that I find most attractive in people are their flaws and their imperfections."
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2001 was a breakthrough year for Nicole Kidman as she made waves for her turn as cabaret actress and courtesan Satine in Baz Luhrmann's musical "Moulin Rouge!" opposite Ewan McGregor. Not only did she have to put on a long red-haired wig for the romantic drama, but she also had to reveal a level of singing and dancing ability that she had never put on display before. Her corset-heavy performance became her most-celebrated work to date at the time, earning her her second Golden Globe Award as well as her first Academy Award nomination. Her hard work also gave her a broken rib during production, but Nicole was determined to prove herself with the film. "Part of that was me testing out my voice to see whether I thought I was gonna be able to do it," she told "Entertainment Tonight." "Because the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself."
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Nicole Kidman transformed into a self-styled hairdresser and wife of a Baptist preacher in Arkansas in the 2018 biographical drama "Boy Erased." The film, which is based on a true story, follows a young boy who's forced to take part in a gay conversion therapy program by his religious, conservative parents. Reviews like Vanity Fair's praised the actress and co-stars Lucas Hedges and Russell Crowe for "elevating the fairly standard-issue material to poignant highs." Outside of a Southern accent, Nicole also had to get the style down pat, including a selection of oversized jewelry coupled with her "Golden Girls"-esque white-blonde bouffant wig and acrylic nails. While promoting the film, she told Deadline how important it is for her to dig deep to get to the heart of her work. "I'm going to artistically commit on the deepest level I can, and I'm going to give a huge part of my emotional self to these roles — or I'm going to dig, dig, dig until I find the way to do that emotionally," she told the outlet. "But I'm never going to do it half-a****. I'm just trying to give everything I can to it."
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2003's "The Human Stain" saw Nicole Kidman leave the bright lights of Hollywood to play a small-town working-class woman. Her semi-literate character, who supports herself by working menial jobs, begins an affair with a considerably older professor (played by Anthony Hopkins) at the college where she's employed as a cleaning lady. The pair's relationship is eventually threatened by her mentally unbalanced stalker ex-husband. Nicole, who sported her best mumblingly New England accent, paired the voice with disheveled brown curls, drab hooded sweatshirts and worn blue jeans to truly look as little like a movie star as possible. But as she told The Morning Call at the time, she has more in common with the character than some might think. "Look, I've cleaned toilets when I was an usherette in Sydney," she told the outlet. "My hands got very dirty. Whether you believe me or not as a janitor, I tried to do the best I could to honor her as a woman."
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One of Hollywood's biggest stars of all time had her life story told on the big screen when Nicole Kidman portrayed actress and Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly in the 2015 drama "Grace of Monaco." It documents the 1962 crisis in which Charles de Gaulle blockaded the tiny principality, angered by Monaco's status as a tax haven for wealthy French subjects, as well as Grace's contemplative Hollywood return to star in Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie." While the film didn't receive a glowing response, Nicole perfectly slid into Grace's regal designer shoes. The Independent wrote that she "excels in a role in which she is called on to project glamour and suffering in equal measure — and is never allowed to be seen in the same outfit twice." As Nicole told IndieWire at the time of the film's release, it was a chance for her to challenge herself without mimicking the screen queen. "My whole career I'm looking for things that put me on a high wire, this was one of those roles," she told the outlet. "It was important that I didn't feel trapped to mimic her. It was about finding her essence. It was a beautiful experience to live her life for six months."
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Nicole Kidman plays a rich socialite in the 2018 drama "The Goldfinch," an adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name. It stars Ansel Elgort as a young man whose life changes after his mother dies in a terrorist bombing at a museum and a dying man convinces him to take a famous painting called The Goldfinch from the wreckage. Nicole had to put on a gray wig and major prosthetics for the part, which required her to play someone significantly older than her actual age — the woman tasked with caring for the protagonist after he loses his mom. The character also came with a closet full of posh Chanel suits to transform Nicole into the quintessential Uptown New York City woman of means. The film wasn't a hit but Entertainment Weekly commended Nic for playing her part with "elegant affection."
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2017 saw Nicole Kidman let loose in the romantic comedy "How to Talk to Girls at Parties." It follows a group of punks in '70s London who encounter teenagers from another planet and saw Nicole playing an old-school punk who manages the local hangout for the rebellious youths, serving as their den mother. She's barely recognizable in a choppy gray-and-black wig cut bluntly with the back spiked up in a very Cruella de Vil-style homage. The striking look is paired with an upside-down cat eye and eccentric outfit consisting of a deconstructed Elizabethan ruff, black pants and a black overcoat adorned with safety pins and studs.
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One of Nicole Kidman's earliest breakout roles came in the 1995 dark comedy "To Die For." She stars as a weather reporter at a small-town cable station who dreams of being a big-time news anchor and refuses to let anything stand in her way. She eventually enlists a lovelorn high schooler to murder the husband who's holding her back. The powerfully twisted performance sees Nicole transforming from a housewife with big hair and big dreams into a television personality who sports the TV news look of short hair, colorful suits and high heels to make her mark in the field. She won her first Golden Globe Award for the performance, which the San Francisco Chronicle praised, writing that "[she] brings to the role layers of meaning, intention and impulse. Telling her story in close-up — as she does throughout the film — Kidman lets you see the calculation, the wheels turning, the transparent efforts to charm that succeed in charming all the same."
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In the 2017 dramedy "The Upside," Nicole Kidman stars alongside Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart as the assistant of a wealthy quadriplegic who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a recently paroled convict whom the rich man hires to take care of him. The part required the actress to wear a shoulder-length brunette wig and oversized glasses, giving her a more homely, booksmart look. The more ordinary aesthetic was filled out with the help of dowdy department store-style blouses and cardigans. It's not easy to make someone as stunning as Nicole look genuinely ordinary, but her work in "The Upside" sure comes close.
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One of Nicole Kidman's most acclaimed parts to date was in the 2003 war drama "Cold Mountain" opposite Jude Law and Renee Zellweger. She stars as a Southern woman who falls for a Confederate soldier. They're separated by the Civil War and she's forced to learn to run a farm with little help, finding herself unprepared for the hardships of war. The role forced Nicole to don incredible garb from the time period, as well as get covered in dirt as her character learns to really put her hands to use for the first time. It all paid off as critics hailed her performance, with Time magazine writing, "Kidman takes strength from Ada's plight and grows steadily, literally luminous. Her sculptural pallor gives way to warm radiance in the firelight." She went on to receive her sixth Golden Globe Award nomination for her work.
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Nicole Kidman took a rare villainous turn in the 2014 children's film "Paddington" as a hateful museum taxidermist who kills and stuffs exotic animals to house in the Natural History Museum — and she hunts down Paddington to add to the collection. To personify the evil wrongdoer, she sported a sharp, minimalist look featuring a platinum-blonde wig and a very chic, icy wardrobe. "I now see kids after 'Paddington' looking at me sort of kind of hypnotized," she told E! about the reaction she receives since taking on the sinister part, pointing out that her kids loved seeing the evil side of mom. "My daughter is like, 'Get that wig and bring it home!'"
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Another prominent figure received the Nicole Kidman treatment when the actress played American photographer Diane Arbus in the 2006 biographical film "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" alongside Robert Downey Jr. Set in the '50s, it shows how Diane went from an ordinary housewife to an incredible photographer with the help of a new neighbor who inspires her to set forth on discovering her own artistry. Nicole donned bangs and brunette hair for the film as well as a ton of period-appropriate dresses. The film takes some creative license with Diane's story, telling a fictional tale about the photography icon. "When dealing with an artist of that capacity," Nicole told Variety of the project at the time, "unless you're doing a warts-and-all, it's far better to do something more magical. That's what was enticing to me, the magical quality of this story."
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Mia Farrow's iconic "Rosemary's Baby" pixie cut made a major return on Nicole Kidman in the 2004 drama "Birth." She plays a widow who becomes convinced that her dead husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy who warns her not to marry her new fiancé. For a star best known for her long strawberry blonde locks, the short brunette 'do was a startling change. Director Jonathan Glazer has said the character's short hair, spare wardrobe and short, clipped speech were ways of showing her in mourning both externally and internally. He told IGN he was painting her as "somebody who had sort of let all glamor go and sexuality go." Nicole nabbed another Golden Globe Award nomination and critics gave the actress even more glowing reviews. The New York Times wrote that "Without Ms. Kidman's brilliantly nuanced performance, 'Birth' might feel arch, chilly and a little sadistic, but she gives herself so completely to the role that the film becomes both spellbinding and heartbreaking, a delicate chamber piece with the large, troubled heart of an opera."
