Los Angeles Times - 26.11.2019

S38

THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019

B

ig Little

Lies”ended its

second season

with its women

walking into the

Carmel police

station together,

presumably to confess to their

part in Perry’s death and put an

end to the biggest lie they’ve been

harboring.

What happens next?

Ask Nicole Kidman, star and

executive producer on the HBO

series, and she’ll dance around the

answer.

But Kidman does have a revela-

tion to share about the show’s

future.

Liane Moriarty, the Australian

author of the book the series is

based on, will be writing again

about Celeste and Madeline, Jane

and Bonnie and, of course, Renata,

looking at their lives after that trip

to the police station.

“She’s always wanted to take

these women further,” Kidman

says. “And she wrote a novella for

Season 2, but she didn’t write a

book, so she still has that book in

her head about what she wants to

do with them.”

And when she writes it, Kid-

man says, you can bet she, Reese

Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoë

Kravitz and Shailene Woodley

will come. And, yes, Meryl Streep

too, because as Kidman notes of

Celeste’s mother-in-law: “There’s

a lot of reasons for Mary Louise’s

damage and why she behaves the

way she does, and maybe we can

show them.”

Kidman had an hour before she

needed to take her youngest daugh-

ter, Fifi, to back-to-back basketball

games (“I like shooting hoops too,”

she says. “I find it quite relaxing”),

plenty of time to dish about where

we left the Monterey Five.

What happens after they walk

into that police station?

I don’t know! You tell me!

You played the attorney. You

know the legal ramifications

better than I do.

It depends on what they say.

But to give it any direction would

be wrong. It’s all up to Liane.

What if they were sent to pris-

on?

Like “Orange Is the New

Black”? No. I just shot a series

[HBO’s “The Undoing”] and we

shot a little bit in prison, and it

was awful. I was pretty down ...

just grim and cold and incredibly

depressing. I think I want to avoid

prisons for a while.

Then it could be a prison-break

movie, like the “Great Escape.”

With Madeline as the master-

mind? Hold on ... no, Renata would

be the mastermind. Anyway, no. I

would quit that. [Laughs]

This season built to that show-

down between Celeste and

Mary Louise. Meryl Streep said

of you that “you see the full

height of Nicole” in that court-

room confrontation.

I was just happy because you

could have seen Celeste falling

apart right then. She has a lot of

self-loathing but also the strength

to pull up and find her way

through.

It felt very honest to me, the

way she worked through those

self-esteem issues, knowing that

there’s still a pull to what she

and Perry had together and

wanting that to stay intact in her

psyche. She has to destroy it

before she can let go. And she

doesn’t want to let go. That’s a

complicated place for people to

understand.

Having Mary Louise in her life

didn’t help. That first episode

where Meryl screams at the

dinner table ... you looked genu-

inely startled.

I call that a soul scream. And

it vibrates in a different place.

Not just the sound of it, but the

feel of it.

Have you ever let out a soul

scream?

When my dad died, yeah. My

daughter was at the top of the

stairs, and she heard me scream

over the phone at night. It was

awful ... just about to go to sleep,

getting that phone call.

That’s my biggest fear in a

way. I’ve received lots of news

over the phone at night, and it

just shapes and changes my life

in a way that I don’t like. And I

have a mother who lives in

Australia and daughters, so that

phone is always on at night.

Someone told me that you prac-

ticed with your mother prior to

filming that scene where Ce-

leste slaps Mary Louise.

I did! [Laughs] But I didn’t

really slap her. It was hilarious,

actually. And she loved that bit

of performance art. We were at a

party and we wanted people to

see the impact of what that

would be like.

I was wondering if it would

seem too aggressive. But then,

even if it was, I would have still

done it. You have to try things.

If I didn’t do everything I was

frightened of doing, I would

have never done any of the

work I’ve done. Anyway, my

mama helped. She always

does. 8

SAG AWARDS | TELEVISION

Can only

confess to

so much

Nicole Kidman

reveals that author

Liane Moriarty will

write a follow-up

to ‘Big Little Lies’

but keeps mum

on what’s in store

for the characters.

BY GLENN WHIPP

KIDMAN,

left, and Meryl

Streep in "Big

Little Lies.”

Jennifer ClasenHBO