Nicole Kidman's Killer Instinct Knows Few Rules in Vogue Australia by Steven Klein

Nicole Kidman made news this week when Apple landed David E. Kelley’s Elle Fanning-Nicole Kidman Drama ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’. ‘Margo’ is based on the forthcoming novel by Rufi Thorpe that landed with producers A24 after a bidding war in October for rights to the book, writes ‘The Hollywood Reporter’.

Elle Fanning — who stars as Margo — and Kidman will be joined by sister Dakota Fanning. The actors trio will also exec produce the eight-part series in concert with Kelley, who has showrunner credentials.

Nicole Kidman makes her ninth appearance on the cover of Vogue Australia February 2024 issue, styled by Christine Centenera. Photographer Steven Klein [IG] photographs Kidman’s well-established ‘Killer Instincts’ fashion style with an interview by Hannah-Rose Yee.

From fashion to film, Nicole Kidman doesn’t follow the rules. Remember the commentariat’s outrage over her MiuMiu micro mini skirt photo in Vanity Fair’s 2022 Hollywood issue. That photograph majorly moved MiuMiu brand’s bottom line profits and Kidman loved the controversy.

Let’s discuss the snake. “I think it’s something to do with the same way that I skydive or scuba dive,” Kidman explained about her request to be subversive in the fashion shoot. Kidman finds snakes “alluring”, leaving her fascinated by the way “they slither and move” and by the notion of shedding skins. “You can become and try different things, all the time, which is what excites me,” she reflects poetically.

Opening her arms to receive the snake — which was larger than Kidman expected — the actor explained that she is able to enter a trance in most situations. This skill exponentially expands her acting skill set, in a fearless, freedom-to-coexist with just about any situation.

Much of Kidman’s interview focuses on her devotion to working with women, first proclaimed in 2017 after a conversation with Meryl Streep at the Cannes Film Festival. After promising to work with a female director every 18 months, Kidman has over-delivered on her pledge.

Adding to the list of women already mentioned, Kidman expands her women’s circle. She

. . . counts Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Andrea Arnold, Karyn Kusama and Kim Gehrig as recent compatriots on what she calls her “adventures” in celluloid. “I’ve been on these quite intense journeys with these women recently, which has been fantastic,” she says. “And I feel very safe with them. I have a very close relationship with my sister and my daughters and my nieces and my mother and my aunts. I’m very, very comfortable with sharing everything with them and hearing the way they see things and their perspective…It’s a very, very powerful place of protection for me with women.”

The American Film Institute has chosen Nicole Kidman to receive the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute on April 27, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Kidman is the first Australian actor to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award. Read the extensive AFI text on the actor’s career.

Kidman has served as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women for nearly two decades. With husband, Keith Urban, she has helped raise millions of dollars for the Stanford Women’s Cancer Program, a world-renowned center for research into the causes, treatment, prevention, and eventual cure of women’s cancer.

This is a very robust interview at Vogue Australia. Read on in third paragraph, top of page.