82 newyork| october12–25, 2020
N
icole kidman getsit.
She knows that you’re
bored in month sevenof
the pandemic and that
portion control canbe
challenging. She knows The Undoing—
HBO’s six-part thriller set among Man-
hattan’snotalways terribly sympathetic
elites, which she produced and starsin—
is the kind of TV dessert that is hardto
stop eating after just one bite, especially
given parts one through five all endwith
some form of a “What happens next?!”
moment that will frustrate viewerswho
want fast answers. And, yes, she knows
some of you may decide to solve this prob-
lem by letting the entire run of the show
stack up before even taking a taste. “Well,”
Kidman says, calling from Australia, “Ido
hear that people now don’t tune in until
it’ s all been released, because they’relike,
‘I don’t want to wait.’ I hope people don’t
do that. I hope that they go, ‘Okay, I’lldip
my toe in and I’ll take the hour.’ One ofthe
great benefits of doing television witha
thriller is that you get to go, ‘No, you have
to wait.’ Because the state of waitingisa
good state to exist in, isn’t it?”
Debatable! Anyway, Kidman is not anti-
binge. She hastens to say she’s okaywith
your gulping down the next miniseries
she’s making, Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers
(currently shooting in Byron Bay, Austra-
lia), all at once. But The Undoing is differ-
ent. Even though it is set in (almost)con-Meanwhile,in AnotherWorldHow a Nicole Kidman–
Hugh Grant drama series
wound up becoming an
inadvertent time capsule.
By Mark Harristhe undoing premieres
October 25 on HBO.The CULTURE PAGES
Photograph by Niko Tavernise/HBO