Nicole Kidman is currently in New York shooting a new series for HBO called The Undoing based on Jean Hanff Korelitz’s book You Should Have Known. She plays Grace Sachs, a woman who appears to have it all together – husband has a successful medical practice, son is enrolled at an elite school, and she’s about to publish her first book, called You Should Have Known in which she basically tells women that, well, they should have known. And then, well, she should have known. Does anyone ever truly “have it all”?
Nicole is producing with many of the same people from the Big Little Lies team, including David E Kelley. Hugh Grant is playing the husband. I can’t wait to see this – both the show and Hugh and Nicole together on this press tour. Because you know Hugh. You know how he can be. One of the answers to “what made you decide to take on this project?” just might be “well, I have a lot of children now, I need the money – and the work was interesting”. I love that about him. Also if he and Nicole are paired for press, obviously someone has to ask them about… Paddington!
As you can see, Nicole’s gone back to red for this character and it feels like it’s been a while since we’ve seen her as a redhead, which is how we first met her, even though she was a redhead as Celeste in BLL. For some reason, though, seeing her like this, it’s like a throwback. I’m getting a Days of Thunder flashback right now, only with a more relaxed texture. When Nicole first broke out, it was all red ringlets, remember? I have a lot of nostalgia for her redhead roles. She was a redhead in Practical Magic. And Moulin Rouge. My favourite redhead Nicole role though: To Die For. The purist out there would probably classify her hair in To Die For as more strawberry blonde, but her character in that film, Suzanne, shares a provocative through-line with those other Nicole redheads, and there’s an essay here that I’d write if I had a week to focus on it that groups her characters by hair colour and their similarities and how far she takes them. Like my thesis right now would be that she goes for it way harder when the role is a redhead or darker (Destroyer, for example) than when she’s a blonde.
Anyway, she looks great in this hairstyle, non? And also really young.