Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells shared a short conversation I had with him yesterday afternoon.
The topic was the inevitability of Nicole Kidman’s “Being the Ricardos” performance being Oscar nominated. We discussed the strength of Academy-voter enthusiasm for Kidman‘s performance and, quite frankly, it is bewildering.
“We all know what the Nicole narrative was before everyone saw Being The Ricardos. “She’s wrong for the part, doesn’t look like Lucy, they should have hired Debra Messing,” etc. Then it opened and everyone said “oh, Nicole’s better than we expected…not bad!” And then somehow that got turned into Best Actress Oscar heat.”
What I’m saying is that Kidman’s Lucy performance isn’t nearly as good as she was in To Die For, Birth, The Hours, The Others, Moulin Rouge, Destroyer, Birthday Girl, Bombshell, The Paperboy, Rabbit Hole, Portrait of a Lady and Dogville.
That’s 12 performances. She’s one of the great actresses of our time. Maybe the best of the bunch, at least in the top five for me, is her exemplary work in Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth” — an underpraised film that has aged like fine wine. Seek it out, if you haven’t already.