The Big Picture - The Nicole Kidman Hall of Fame, and ‘Babygirl’

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Sean and Amanda discuss the successes, shortcomings, themes, and performances of Halina Reijn’s ‘Babygirl,’ an erotic thriller/black comedy starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, and Antonio Banderas (1:00). Then, they build the Kidman Hall of Fame, choosing 10 installations in her film career that best represent her full body of work (41:00). Finally, Sean is joined by Reijn to discuss making the movie, building chemistry between the stars, why she was so interested in exploring the sexual themes and power dynamics in the movie, the importance of humor, and more (2:01:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Halina Reijn Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yassi Salek, and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer Original podcast, Bandsplain, the show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists to you and yours. This time, babe, we're going across the pond. That's right, I'm absolutely chuffed to be talking about the music scenes of 80s and 90s Britain. I'm talking Manchester, I'm talking baggy, I'm talking shoegaze, I'm talking Britpop, mate. So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax,

you can get your choice of junior chicken, Mcdouble, or chicken snack wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Me meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Nicole Kidman. Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Helena Rain. She's the writer, director of Kidman's new film baby girl

It's an erotic thriller black comedy mashup that Amanda and I will talk about today along with Kidman's expansive career in Building her Hall of Fame Helena was last on the show for her film bodies bodies bodies Phenomenal guest an incredibly funny insightful person. I encourage you to stick around for that conversation Amanda I think you will enjoy it as well. I hope you'll listen. But first, you know, I didn't wait for you for very many movies on the pod while you were out, but I did wait for you for Baby Girl. Because I saw Baby Girl, like, three months ago,

and I was like, it was like probably three days after you gave birth. And I was like, you are a baby girl of your own. And I was like, boy, this is an Amanda text if I've ever seen one. For a variety of reasons. Baby Girl, of course, stars Kidman and Antonio Banderas, your beloved Harris Dickinson.

It's Helena Rain's third feature as a director. She wrote this movie as well. It's about a high-powered CEO who puts her career and her family on the line for a torrid affair with an intern. It is that, and it is a lot of other things as well. A story about power, sex, passion, desire. A very funny movie, I thought.

What did you think of Baby Girl? Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um...

Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um...

Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Um... Holy cow. That was very important. I like this movie a lot. It was interesting to watch everyone else see it before me, and it seems to be somewhat divisive. I think it's pretty mixed, has been the reception, yeah.

Well, is it mixed or is it people either love it or hate it? Because I saw a lot of polarizing takes. Excuse me. Really, still getting over Harris Dickinson. I'm somewhere in the middle. I think it's really good. I think the Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson scenes together, frankly, the sex scenes and the ideas about sex and power, but really sex on screen were very cool and very good and very memorable.

The CEO stuff and this idea of a woman in power, yeah, like getting there to some extent. And the further you get to the sides of some of the head of Gabler constructs, some of the robot concepts, I was like, oh, okay, there's a lot in this movie and I don't know if everything is pinned down. But it has sort of that instantly memorable,

what it's trying to do, it gets really right. In a way that I think will be referenced for a while to come. So I'm pro. Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. I don't think it's a perfect execution of what it's attempting to both honor and subvert, but it's an interesting attempt at taking the framework of a certain kind of a movie, an erotic thriller, and using it to basically tell a very vulnerable and at times very goofy portrayal of desire. And there's just not a lot of examples for that. I think one of the reasons-

Well, is it about desire or is it about suicide? Is Antonio Banderas like, wails into his hands at the table when talking about Hedda Gabler? Not suicide, but wanting to wreck your life. I think we should talk about that. I think we should talk about like, some of the things that Nicole Kidman's character

thinks she wants versus what she actually wants and how some of those things that Nicole Kidman's character thinks she wants versus what she actually wants and how some of those things are communicated and how the Harris Dickinson character becomes like a kind of portal to getting what she thinks she wants and then looking that right in the eye and figuring it out. I think we will be spoiling the movie. Again, this is not a movie that necessarily

like hinges on its plot turns. It's really a movie of set pieces. It's a movie that necessarily hinges on its plot turns. It's really a movie of set pieces. It's a movie that really uses music very effectively to kind of build to its set pieces. One of the reasons why I think it's so divisive is this is not basic instinct. You know, this is not fatal attraction. It at times feels like it because of the way, say, the score works and we see the characters very up close, like handheld, intimate photography, and the idea that like characters are climaxing on screen

and that there's this set, but like there's no murder in this movie. The stakes are like a person could be felled from power, but it's not, this is, there's no Sharon Stone slashing someone's throat. It's a very different kind of thing. It doesn't even have the mania of like, the rabbit with Glenn Close. And so I think one of the reasons why it's divisive is, it's selling us on a very sexy, very kind of scary thriller. And it's not really that.

It's like a comedy of managers played straight. And I think because of that, and other things for sure, but the screenings that I've been to of this movie, people are laughing in the movie theater. I think because of some, and other things for sure, but the screenings that I've been to of this movie, people are laughing in the movie theater. I think because of some of the discomfort that they had. Okay, yeah. It was absolutely silent in my screening. I mean, it wasn't like packed, you know, people catching up. But no, like, you know, and the movie very memorably starts

with just Nicole Kidman, well, Nicole Kidman orgasming or fake... It's the sounds anyway. And those sounds are piped in loud and there's nothing else. No one else was making any noise for a very long time. Yeah. I don't think that you're meant to think it's funny right away. Yeah. And at first...

Okay, let me ask you this. Yeah. This is hopefully, okay, let me ask you this. Yeah. This is hopefully an episode of Great Revelation. When you were watching that sequence where you're like, well, this is clearly a fake orgasm and this is immediately being communicated to us. No, of course not.

And even when she storms down the hall and gets out her computer, I was like, oh, okay, so now she can't enjoy sex. She's gonna like pull up this screen and like get back into her meetings or whatever. Yeah, go back to work. And then a great reveal instead that she's gonna like pull up the screen and like get back into her meetings or whatever. Yeah, go back to work. And then a great reveal instead that she's like, I mean, I had some computer safety and just like basic computer practices concerns with her. You know, she watches the porn, which is like very

readily available on that laptop that is like seems to be in an open office that she shares in a house that she shares with her two teenage daughters and her husband. And then when she is done, she doesn't hit stop and close the tab. She just closes the computer. And I was like, lady, come on. So next time you open that laptop, what's there? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, technology in general and how it's being used in this movie. It sounds like someone with some porn watching experience. No, I mean, Samuel is saved in her phone as Samuel? I mean, come on. I had some concerns about that as well. Sure, again. So right off the bat, we're playing fast and loose here.

And on the one hand, I was just like, OK, so this is a movie. They're not going to get everything right. And on the other hand, maybe this person is being reckless in some ways. I think that, at least in that sequence, well, that raises a question about laptop etiquette going to get everything right. And on the other hand, maybe it is this person is being reckless in some ways. At least in that sequence. Well, that raises a question about laptop etiquette in one's home, especially with a family, which is I have my laptop and you have yours.

Don't open mine and I won't open yours. Is that how it works in your home? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And- My wife has a Lenovo and I have a MacBook, so it's almost like driving an EV in a gas-powered car.

Like they're just two different machines. And there's also like password protection and all sorts of things. But Zach, there's one iPad. Oh, interesting. That's used a lot now for Knox's stuff. Okay. But somehow is still connected to my...

Listen, you guys know me in the cloud. Like I have not enabled that ever. Yeah, you have to download all your phone. That is not, and it's like somehow like FaceTime is still going off on my iPad. And I'm just like, okay, that's not great. And sometimes, you know, Zach will need to do like a podcast or an audio recording thing. And so I'm like his engineer and he uses my home setup. Okay.

So, but because of the software whatever. But you close all the tabs before that happens. Yeah, of course. Yeah, got it. That's a no. The way that this Dickinson character comes into Nicole Kidman's character's life is because there's an internship program at this robotics company where she is the CEO. I agree with you that I think some of the storytelling frameworks on the edges of the movie

feel a little bit underdeveloped. Yeah, it's also like I get it. Okay robotics and But it was like and and there was also some attempt to comment on It's very Amazon like style warehouse and there is a lot of camera-facing, corporate PR, speak, soullessness. Yeah, it's represented, but it's kind of just gestured at, it's not really explored. Yeah, I get it. There is a kind of critical power dynamic

between her character and her assistant that is essentially like a plot device that allows us to get to the conclusion of the story. But this intern comes along along and Harris Dickinson, who is an actor you've expressed serious affection for, but who is, you know, embarking on like a pretty cool career. Star of Beach Rats, Star of Triangle of Sadness, Star of the Iron Claw. He's had good taste. He's become one of the tall British A24 boys.

Yeah, but like, he is... He is notably tall. Like, even in that first... I mean, you see him on the street and he's wearing, he has his like Topo bag, like Chris Ryan style, incredible stuff. Big luck for Chris Ryan. And then... I'm not, let's not compare Chris Ryan and Aaron Stiginson,

just for Chris's sake, please. But then he's like, herded around with a group of interns and my guy is two heads taller than anyone else. Like it's, you know, that is again, the point of the movie that he is supposed to stand out a little, but like LOL. He's costumed perfectly. He's wearing basically like either hand me down Brooks Brothers or J. Crew clothes.

Doesn't button the top button on his shirt. It's like it appears to be the first time he's worn his tie since his first communion. He looks like a kid, even though Harris Dickinson, I think he was like 26 or 27 at this point. And they meet on the street because a dog is about to attack Nicole Kidman's character in the street. And Harris Dickinson's character,

before they've entered the office building, subdues the dog with a cookie. Right. Just the crowds part on a busy, like on a New York... What is that? Yeah, where is it? It's sort of like down... Like Midtown, Bryant Park, maybe something like that. It was in an area where the crossing signals give you the weight.

It seems like lower Broadway, because I think there was like a sign that said lower Broadway. Anyway, so the things part and then there he is. And it's a vicious dog. And I did think that this movie very quickly got right, dog safety and owners irresponsibility, but that's a separate conversation. I watched it a second time with my wife and when we watched it, I said to her, this is probably my most perverse takeaway from this movie,

but I think we should get a dog. I've been wanting to get a dog for a very long time, but there's a very memorable image at the end of the film, featuring Harris Dickinson and a dog. Yes, okay. But not for the purposes that are portrayed in the movie, just because I love a tamed dog. And yeah, I mean, essentially, they very quickly... they essentially, they very quickly encounter one another at work.

Um, he applies, they have a follow-up conversation in the, in the, in the break room. He applies to be to our mentor program. I mean, that, the break room's really good, where she's like, hey, make me a coffee. And then she's like, clearly from the minute she sees him with the dog is taken by him, but doesn't want to engage on his, like, trying to be minute she sees him with the dog is taken by him,

but doesn't want to engage and is like trying to be like boss CEO, make me a coffee while I'm on the phone, which is like not normal CEO behavior, but whatever. Um, it's not something I do. Yeah, it's not something it's, it's, it's 20, 20, 20, 20, 20. I don't know if I've ever asked anyone who isn't Chris for a coffee at work. Um, I mean, or if you do, you're like, Hey, are you going? Can you, whatever it's, it's very brusque. And, and I think intentionally in sort of a power thing, he does it. And then there's the exchange about the cookie and she's like, do you always have a cookie on you?

And the way that he just like volleys back, like, does he say sometimes or yes? Smirks and says, why do you want one? Yeah. Yeah. And the smirk is the revelation that the power exchange between these two characters will be basically the primary engine of the movie. And that the next thing that he asks her, which is so wonderful, where he... or he just scolds her and says,

you shouldn't have coffee after noon. And how many have you had today? And she says, that's none of your business. Seven. Seven. The Nicole Kidman timing on that is very special. She's really good in this movie. I think one of the reasons why, the thing I like best about this movie in particular is it's a great star part for a star exploring some of their kind of external mythology.

Nicole Kidman has been one of the most beautiful people on the planet for going on 40 years. She has emerged as like one of the signature stars of Hollywood. We just watched the Golden Globes last night. They mentioned that she has been nominated for 20 Golden Globes. She is in the firmament. One thing that's cool about her as an actress though, is that even though she has such glamour, and is just so darn famous,

she often takes on parts that kind of dismantle our expectations of her. This movie in particular, I think, dismantles something super cool, which is what does a powerful woman who needs to be presentable every day have to do to feel confident, to feel like they're successful, to feel like they're communicating what their role in the world is? And so, when we see her interacting with Harris Dickinson's character, she's trying to control herself, but there's primal desire leaking out. But the movie itself shows her getting Botox.

It shows her going to audio therapy. It shows her going to the cryo chamber. It shows her trying to do the things that we in the outside world think Nicole Kidman probably does. Yes. And I don't know if that's like a fearless act, but it's a cool way to kind of gesture at because even though Nicole Kinman isn't a CEO, she sort of has the same responsibilities. She has to speak in public.

She has to represent something more meaningful and moral and forward-thinking than maybe it really is. She has to make a lot of money and she has to represent a kind of untouchable power. So this movie like it slots in really nicely there and then the subtext or the just the subterranean aspect of the movie is what all people, but especially powerful people have, which is like desire to get the physical feeling and emotional feeling that they really want,

but can't say out loud. So I love, it's a fun movie to think about in that way. I agree with you that there's some leaky parts of the storytelling and there were some underdeveloped parts as you said, but for her, I just really liked watching her kind of go through the process of like allowing herself something and then taking it away from herself and then allowing it for herself and taking it away from herself. Because we hear this about powerful people all the time.

What did you think about that part of the story? Yes. Another part of Nicole Kimmon's career that I noticed while preparing for the Hall of Fame. And you do kind of think about it, but when you're looking for patterns, I mean, she's not afraid of sex scenes on screen. She is not afraid of pretty uncomfortable, vulnerable, provocative scenes,

and exploring power and sex, and like putting herself on the upsetting side of that a lot. And in a lot of ways, in a lot of places where she's, I mean, she's like definitely having a sex scene, but or is she being sexually assaulted or is she like the wife who is the only thing that she has as her sexual power or... So this was an interesting continuation of what it means to be Nicole Kidman doing this on screen and what these scenes mean. And I actually did think this,

the sex scenes as set pieces were fascinating and really well filmed and memorable. There's like the hotel scene, well, there are two hotel scenes. There's the dog hotel. The motel encounter. The motel, sure. The beginning. There is the fancy hotel,

which I believe is the Carlisle. Yes. I don't know if it's the Carlisle, but it's Carlisle-esque. Yeah. There's the rave, where at first I was like, this is stupid and getting away from you, but then there's just something about watching the two

of them in the strobe lights for an extended period of time and the physicality of Nicole Kidman. She does not look cool, she does not look sexy. She is really examining, or just going for it physically in a new way. And then also to your point, and it shows her getting Botox, it shows her a lot of things, as a physical performer, she lets herself go a little bit in this one.

She looks her age. I mean, she's still the most beautiful person in the world, but you know, you have to assume... There's tight close-ups on her face. Tight, tight, tight. Yeah, but even like the lighting and the way that, you know, what wrinkles you're allowed to see and what you're not allowed to see, like, is definitely a choice that an actor of her caliber and phase of life makes. She gets to make that decision.

Yeah, and she's making it, and she's making it. And she's making it in, like, noticeable and interesting ways. So, I thought that was cool. And I thought that the age stuff of it, um, to me was very... was interesting. Just because... I mean, all actresses who, like, have to age in front of the camera as she has, like, have that sort of public spoken

or unspoken conversation, but hers has been somewhat spoken. So it was cool. No, I mean, it's often rumored about, you know, and it's an interesting time for this movie to come along in the same year as The Substance, where that movie makes the metaphorical literal. And this movie is not that far from doing the same thing

and confronting it, both movies made by women, made by women, I think who are like, I'm getting a little bit older. You know, I'm into my 40s and now this is something I have to think about quite often. I think the other thing too that is notable and it's so interesting talking to Helena because she's like, this is very much based on my experiences and how I feel. Okay. And the sexual nature of the relationship is like submissive domination.

Right, right, right. And putting herself in that position as an actress on screen, and also the very amusing way in which Harris Dickinson plays the Dom is really, really good. Yeah, incredible. And they together, like, figured something out in terms of, like, it's palpable from the second that he's on the street, you know, the coffee, everything, are just like, wow, this is amazing. These two are really, like, working it out together.

And they have, like, there's a choreography that goes, especially in that motel scene, where they're kind of, like, figuring out what they're going to do together for the first time. And the difference between this and other erotic thrillers, like I said, is this is not, like, a take your clothes off and thrust on top of me kind of like figuring out what they're going to do together for the first time. And the difference between this and other erotic thrillers, like I said, is this is not like a take your clothes off and thrust on top of me kind of movie. No. It's a totally different kind of sex scene that is shown a few different times.

And the way that the characters are having orgasms is different than what Sharon Stone does in Basic Instinct. And... And even then what Nicole Kidman does at the very beginning of this movie. You know? Yes, yes. The sounds are quite different. That's meant to be the sort of normie version of sex,

which used to be the, whoa, can you believe this sex scene? And so there's something really interesting about that. And I agree. I think that their ability to make those scenes work. And then later the Carlisle scene too, where, you know, she does strip down in that sequence, but she's sort of covering herself

and then she's just sort of embraced by him. Right. And it's not meant to be like, look at me. It's a different psychological portrayal of a sexual relationship. They are, and they are playing off of each other and ping ponging, like that motel scene where they're figuring it out for the first time

and he is going from the dom to like a 23-year-old being like, I don't know what you want to, no, I don't like it that way. And then she is like laughing and then hiding and then angry and then submissive, you know? And it's, I mean, it's in seconds. Yeah. It's amazing, it's amazing stuff. You wonder like how much of it is like written, how much of it is them in the room,

not that one is better than the other. It's just kind of like a fascinating creation because it is like two people really reacting to each other in real time. Yep. Well, she particularly like after a conclusive moment in one of those scenes kind of just like collapses into him. And there's a movie weirdly about like the warm embrace of transgression, I would say.

Yeah. You know, like doing the wrong thing that makes me feel right. And it, and that like being okay. Yes, and not being punished for that, not being criticized for it. But then being confronted, because there were consequences to the things

that they are doing together, being confronted by those consequences. I think one of the complicated parts of the movie, I don't want to spoil the ending of the movie or the way that it concludes, but there's something tidy about the way that it concludes. We're sort of like, we can have it all. Yes.

Maybe that is true. I guess it's not for me to judge, but for a movie that feels like it is constantly bumping up the edge of like, this could blow up your life, this could blow up your life. Maybe a good message is, it doesn't have to blow up your life if you find a way up your life, this could blow up your life. Maybe a good message is, it doesn't have to blow up your life if you find a way to communicate honestly

with the loved ones in your life. I don't really know. I guess for different people, it'll matters differently. It is tidy, but it's also, it's not like you walk away being like, well, she's fundamentally a good person and she like got what she wanted. She's not a bad person.

Right. It's got a cunning CEO. Yeah. And decisions have been made, traits have things have been done where you're not like, wow, transgressive desire is okay in consensual circumstances. And we need to break out of the structures of like our expectations of women and It's it can be okay. It's like oh no, like some fucked up things happened Um, and one small thing related to that that I do like in the movie that isn't like we don't spend too much time on it

But she has two young daughters in her marriage to Antonio Banderas's character And it's clear that one of the daughters is like Antonio's character and one of them is like Nicole's character And she keeps recognizing these moments in her, I guess, her elder daughter, that are like chilling to her, but also she makes her feel close to her daughter. And they have this kind of frictive, but deeply connected bond. And as parents, you know, you see your kid do something and you're like, whoa, that is a me thing or that is a my partner thing.

And in particular- Or you get told repeatedly, hey, that's you. That's also something that happens. But this is a different version of it. It's like, it's like a 19 year old or whatever. I don't know how old that daughter is meant to be. And they don't totally circle the square on that part of the story, but it's something that a person in Nicole Kidman's character's experience

would be feeling, would be seeing, and I really liked it. There's also that fascinating, this scene after the rave, where she comes home at like four in the morning. And I don't know if she is like actually on something, or if she's... I have some ecstasy. Yeah, sure.

I mean, you don't, you see her take it, but the performance she's given is like actually on something or if she's... I have some ecstasy. Yeah, sure. I mean, you don't, you see her take it, but the performance she's given is like, she's just been at a rave. And then it's the daughter sitting at home at the counter being like, what's going on? I'm worried about you. Like, are you okay?

Incredible Nicole Kidman. I'm on drugs, but I'm trying to pretend it's okay, but also I'm slightly liberated by this, but just an amazing scene. Nice callback to Eyes Wide Shut, lecturing Tom Cruise in the bedroom, all stoned out of their minds. What other scenes?

I guess we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the ordering the milk, which is something I will be doing to someone at some point sometime soon. And then the good girl as he walks out, really. But also her chugging the milk. Also, there is a tremendous amount of conversation at the table before of like, who sent you that milk? Don't drink the milk. You know, I did find myself bumping against, not bumping, but being like, you guys are being so obvious throughout the movie.

And that is actually paid up. Well, okay, so at the end of the film, this is a spoiler if you don't want to hear it. We'll try to talk to it really quickly. ["Spoiler Warning!" sound effect plays.] Spoiler warning. I didn't totally get it. So I want you to, maybe you can help me understand what was meant to be implied. We'll try to figure it out together.

So at the very, very end of the movie, like things get sorted out, right? Like they figure out how to stay together as a couple, Banderas' character and Kidman's character. Right. Harris Dickinson's character gets shipped off to Japan to go work for, was it Kawasaki? I can't even remember what company. Yeah, that sounds right.

And another leader of the company who we've previously seen get handed a coffee by Harris Dickinson earlier in the film is having a conversation with Nicole Kidman. And he says to her, he implies that like they could have a sexual tryst in the near future because his house is empty. Right. And because he's like, I see that this is what you do now. Sort of. He seems to imply that he knows what was going on.

So, but was that an implication that they had had a relationship before and then she had done that? Or just that everyone knew that she slept with an intern so that maybe you would then sleep with me? Yes. Yeah. I think he was trying to blackmail her. Okay. Because he implies that everyone knows.

Because there is another employee of the company who comes to her and is like, I know what's going on. Who has also effectively blackmailed her. Yes. Yeah. Which I get, but I was... That seemed a little forward on that gentleman's part. Obviously, we live in a culture where these terrible things happen. I'm not blind to that.

I agree, and that's where some of the... That was kind of one of the two tiny moments because she responds to it with this, like, don't speak to me that way. Like, you know, I'm a boss lady. Like, I'm the dom now. Speech, which, like, that's cool. You go, girl. But also, like... It's one of those moments where you're like, I'm the Dom now, speech, which, like, that's cool. You go, girl. But also, like, it's one of those moments where you're like, huh, like, okay, that's it?

That's what we're... I think one of the reasons why I failed to, like, jump out of my seat and applaud at the end of the movie, even though I had a really good time, was there were a couple sequences like that where I was like, what just happened? Right. Like, it's not totally clear, and I wasn't sure

if I was meant to say, you go, go girl or not, or meant to be like, oh, wow, we all just live in the corporate hell, and our inability to escape these gender-based power structures is dooming us all. I honestly couldn't tell. Yeah. And again, the corporate stuff, I felt, was in some ways, like, very, like, well-observed. I mean, it is hell. And it's also, you know, just kind of like a metaphorical

stand-in for women are expected to present as like, you know, perfect and in control. And we're supposed to, you know, like my generation has been like, you can do anything and you must do anything and you can have it all and you will have it all. And it will all look, you know, perfect on the outside. And I haven't slept in three months.

I've actually haven't slept in a year. That's, you know, they, you can't sleep while you're pregnant and then they definitely don't let you sleep afterwards. It's going to be okay. I got you, I got you. It's going to be okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. So it seemed to me,

and that you're, and so implied in all of that is like, you're supposed to assume all this power. You know, like women, we are all supposed to go girl at all times. And express it, yeah. Yeah, and so part of her desire was, I mean, like that's so exhausting that like, to actually not have to do all of that

is part of what turns her on. Is release, yeah. Yeah, is part of what turns her on. It's release. Yeah. Yeah, it's release. And so that the, the, her coming back to her, like, no, like I can do this when I need to is like, I guess some sort of, it's not redemptive, but it's, she's, I guess she's like turned the mask back on. You know? Yeah. I wonder if that is repression or not. I guess it ultimately doesn't matter. The movie that I've seen this movie compared to quite often

is Secretary, have you seen Secretary? I have, yeah. I mean, well, in like the motel scene, there is like a beautiful wide shot that you immediately do think of Secretary. Yes, Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, 2002, basically like a black comedy as well. About power dynamics in the workplace and sex.

Speaking of Secretary, just this is like a total random side, but Jesse Eisenberg was on, as part of his press tour, he was on Table Manners, the podcast with Jesse Ware, which I recently learned no one under 30 who knows who Jesse Ware is and like educate yourselves. Open the schools. But he was telling a story about taking his now wife on a date to see Secretary. And he like didn't really know that Secretary was going to be about what it is.

Sure, yeah. And I believe his wife was so uncomfortable that she just put her coat over her head throughout the thing. And he says, and then I was like, wow, she's so weird. I want to marry her. Which I thought was a really romantic story. Heartwarming tale. I hope an aspiring young writer, director, actor is currently seeing baby girl with their future wife and making a happy life for themselves. Um, yeah, I guess one other thing I want to mention is,

uh, the music in this movie is amazing. And kind of like carries certain parts of the movie. You know, I... They're the... Obviously, father figure George Michael's song. The kind of Harris Dickinson shirtless... Riding to... He's that noise. He's wearing the tank top and the chain.

And I do think like, Harris Dickinson's chain is like the new Paul Mescal normal people chain, you know? Okay, all right. Like, I guess Baby Girl isn't wide enough for those meme accounts to have started yet, but... Is it just a gold chain? What is it? Does it have a pendant on it? Yeah, but it's... No.

No, it's not Andrew Garfield's. Is it like Christ follower? Yeah, no, it's not Andrew. Oh, that was some good stuff. Um, no, it's just very powerful. It hangs well. Inexcess Never Tear Us Apart, I think is the song that hits Oh, that was some good stuff. No, it's just very powerful. It hangs well. In Excess Never Tear Us Apart,

I think is the song that hits when their affair starts really hitting hard. Yeah. Robin's Dancing on My Own, which has been used quite often in the last 10 years. Sure, but it's like- But feels appropriate for this song. It is a generational touch point for women my age.

Now, the original Robin, not whatever the Phillies are playing after they win games. Like what are we gonna, it's not your problem. The Phillies play dancing on my own? Yes, but a cover, Bobby, help me out here. I know that you're a Mets fan. No, this was a big thing a couple years ago.

It started with the Red Sox actually, and then Kyle Schorber came to the Phillies and brought it with him. They play the, I forget his name, Callum something, cover of Dancing on My Own and not the original. Is it too much to ask? And I think that is why the My Own and not the original. Is it too much to ask? And I think that is why the Phillies lost the World Series. Is it too much to ask that one, we learned a hit in October, and two, we play the original

Robin version of Dancing on My Own? It is too much to ask. Yes. It's concerning me a little bit that you're saying we with the Phillies, and it just hurts myself to smidge. I had to renounce the Braves. I had to, and that's fine. That's okay.

Just for the record, a Braves-Phillies-Dodgers fan over here, so your takes are invalid. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, me, the way that Zach looks at me, anytime that the... Listen, I have renounced them. Must be nice. They moved to Cobb County, which I do not support. And I was like, I'm out. So yes, for the happiness of my son and husband and my other son once he learns what a ball is.

We'll be bringing him into Metz Hive. I'll have you know. No, that would be tough. We will. Okay. We will. Okay. We will. Bob, will we do it? Would Zach like set it on fire if I just like started sending Met's onesies to your house?

Like what would he do? So one time before, well before I was pregnant with Knox, just like the concept of children, I made a joke that I was like, I'm going to raise our children to be Cowboys fans just to mess with you." And Zach, like, both got so angry and almost started crying in a way that it was like, it was a combination I hadn't seen before and haven't seen since. It was so, and I've learned, you know, like that kind of rare emotional response taught me like, this is, we're not joking around. So both my sons, well, Knox knows how to say go birds, I doesn't know how to talk. But I, no, we, we, that, that's how I show my love. Okay. This is, this is what I do. I'm pretty mean,

but I can be a Phillies fan. I wish you guys well. I'm not a Sixers fan. I just, can we please, we need baseball to start again. This is just excruciating. Two more months. Um, very quickly, This is just excruciating. Two more months. Very quickly, awards chances for baby girl. Nicole Kidman is probably the only person in the running at this point. So maybe she'll get it instead of Angelina Jolie. Maybe she'll get the fifth spot.

Seems possible. One thing we forgot to say during our Golden Globes conversation is Maryanne Jean-Baptiste was also snubbed by the Golden Globes. Snubbed. Oh, of course. That's right. And that does seem...

And she's also... I feel like that's going to happen. Yes. I do think that that's going to happen. And so, honestly, if Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman go out and Fernanda Torres and Maryanne Jean-Baptiste go in, I wouldn't be stunned. I wouldn't be stunned. I wouldn't be stunned either. I do with respect to the people of the Brazil and their enthusiasm for their cultural product, the Fernanda Torres Golden Globes history, Brazil, lots of Brazilian voters.

A lot of Brazilian voters in the new academy that goes for the Globes. That's just something to keep in your head. Yes. Fernanda Torres feels actually less likely to me than Mariam Jean-Baptiste. I could be wrong about that, but that's my gut on it. So, Mikey Madison for sure. Demi Moore for sure. Who else? I'm forgetting.

Let's just say Mariam Jean-Baptiste. Mariam. I think that's correct. I got to see that movie. Oh, Cynthia Erivo. Cynthia Erivo. I think that's correct. I gotta see that movie. Oh, Cynthia Erivo. Cynthia Erivo. Yeah, I think that's pretty guaranteed. Carla Sofia Gascon. Yeah, I think that's also happening too.

I agree. Okay. So... And it would be interesting if Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie got blanked. It would. And would also, I think, signal what's increasingly been happening,

which is like Star Power is not really what drives a lot of this stuff. You know, and Star Power is certainly not what drives the wins in these categories. That's true. This movie is still... It's doing solid business. It's made like almost $20 million already, which for a movie this size... Nicole Kidman has been in some successful movies, but I would not say is a classic box office draw. I would say that this has, like, anecdotally,

among the women in my life, it's been like, have you seen Baby Girl yet? When can I see Baby Girl? When is Baby Girl coming out? Like, both from people who do follow these things and people who, you know, text me when the Golden Globes started being like, how is it the Golden Globes again? So... Part of a coordinated effort, I think, text me when the Golden Globes started being like, how is it the Golden Globes again?

So... Part of a coordinated effort, I think, on the part of A24 to, one, they hit a lot of doubles this year. Um, they had a home run with Civil War, but, you know, you had We Live in Time, we had Heretic, now this movie, then The Brutalist. A lot of movies are gonna do, like, pretty good business. And that middle that we're always clamoring for.

So they're finding their audiences. Yeah, and also finding female audiences. A lot of movies are going to do pretty good business and that middle that we're always clamoring for. So they're finding their audiences. Yeah, and also finding female audiences. We Live in Time was huge with female moviegoers and this movie obviously would be too. Unfortunately, I'm never going to be able to see that one, but you liked it. I did. I did. I mean, it's Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh with a three-year-old.

Yeah, I can't do it. It's pretty relevant to my interests. Yeah. So, but Nicole Kamen also always finds a way. She just always finds a way. So you're betting on her? Well, I'm not betting her, I'm just saying. I think I did bet on her for the Oscar bet.

That exercise, because we did it on September 8th, is so fucked. Like, we've made so many bad picks in there, but it'll be fun to go back and look at it in March. Let's talk more about Nicole. OK. She's really good at acting. She's fantastic. And it's weird that we haven't really focused our energy

on her on the show too much, because she is one of the few big, big, big stars who has not stopped working. And in some cases, has been doing excellent work. And it's just that a lot of it has moved to television. And she hasn't stopped making movies. In fact, she makes more movies than any big star in the last quarter century.

She has made 47 movies since 2000. In addition to starring in at least four TV series and doing guest spots on other shows, the thing about her is she fucking works, man. She is present all of the time. In some cases, she works with really audacious and interesting filmmakers. She's one of the only female stars

that works hard to work with female directors. Yes, she's made a point of it. She is a really like exemplary, contemporary, boom, Gen X movie star. She puts her money where her mouth is in a lot of ways. Not all of her stuff works though. She makes a lot of stinkers because she takes a lot of chances.

And then she tends to dot it with, I think pretty smart supporting work in popcorn movies. You know, your golden compasses, your Aquamans, your things that are sort of like, I'm always on a red carpet of some note because I am playing some superhero's mom. And she'll do the work also. She shows up for the photo shoot.

She shows up for the interview. Yes. She's good at giving just the right amount of quotes. A recent interview about how Keith Urban bought her this fancy car and she hated it, and she just drives her Subaru around instead. Really good. Stayed with me. Just like me.

You know? Yeah. What is she good at as an actor? Reserve. Holding a little back. Not, and she can still go for it and she can still be big and she can still do silly performances, comedic performances. It's not quite chilliness and it is not quite, and it is not quite, she's not subdued, but you lean in with her because it's not, there's something that she's not giving to you, even when she's like putting it all out on the screen, until she does.

And that's kind of the power of the thing, at some point she'd like completely let's go. But she's not, she works all the thing. At some point she like completely lets go. But she's not, she works all the time and she does all sorts of projects, but she's not like a theater kid, if that makes any sense. And she's not even, charisma is not what you would say about her,

even though there is like an energy that's pulling you in, but it's not, um, she's, it's, it's, what's, what's it called? Is it entropy when it all like comes into you? Entropy. Yeah, I think that's right. I think she is extremely good at having like a domineering quiet because she's so tall, so striking that if she's in the center of the frame,

she can't hide. But she's not an actor who plays to the back of the crowd. She doesn't, like, rattle. She doesn't speechify when she's performing. Doesn't mean she's quiet, but she, like you said, she knows how to pick her spots. I think she also had this interesting kind of, I don't know, trajectory, I guess you would call it, across her career where the first seven or eight things she does in Australia are mostly comic. And so she develops kind of rom-com-y chops. But she's almost like too beautiful in her 20s to be cast as Meg Ryan.

So she starts taking on the girlfriend parts in movies like Far and Away and Days of Thunder and her relationship with Tom Cruise then kind of power some of that through. But then she uses that period from her like late 20s and early 30s to capitalize and to start making really complicated, interesting, dramatic roles. And then at a certain point, kind of circles back.

And I was like, actually, just kidding. I'm in Bewitched and The Stepford Wives. I'm a comic actress. And then circles back and is like, I'm actually really into soapy stuff, like Big Little Lies. Like she's kind of always moving around. She doesn't get stuck in one genre. She's just as comfortable in Dogville

as she is in Nine Perfect Strangers. You know what I mean? She has like, she's not chameleonic as a performer, but she's chameleonic in terms of the setting that she fits into, which is a real gift. I mean, most performers don't bend themselves. They actually do the opposite. They sort of think to themselves like,

what is my core strength? I mean, her ex-husband is sort of like, in the last 15 years has been like, I'm good at running and being serious and executing missions. Right. And has stuck pretty tightly to that. And she doesn't do that, which I think is really admirable

and really cool. She really does work all the time. She just seems to say yes to stuff in a way that is really cool. I mean, I guess like she has the ability. And there are a lot of women actors who like grow up in front of Hollywood and then they make it past 40

and they're just kind of like, well, I don't know how long I'll get to keep working. So I'll just keep saying yes. But in her case, it feels, I guess she realized she needed to create more opportunities for herself, but she really, she's just taken all of them all at once. It's very cool.

I don't know. Some of it, I'm trying to figure out, because there's a period basically between 2008 and 2019 where she's made a bunch of movies I haven't seen. Okay. And a bunch of movies that had like very limited distribution or that in the parlance of blank check do not exist. Right. And like there's a thriller with Nicolas Cage

called Trespass that I just haven't seen. And I don't know why I missed it, but I missed it. And it doesn't seem like it has any huge reputation. There's one even later after that that I'll get to that I wanna talk to you about. I don't know if you've seen it, maybe you have, but it's one of those things where I'm like, this feels like it's imagined.

But it has- Secret in their eyes? No, even bigger and smaller than that. Okay. So I think that one of the consequences of working all the time is she's not a rare object. You know, it's not like everybody gather around the new Nicole Kidman movie is coming out.

Yeah. Cause she puts out five in a year sometimes. Right. So she doesn't hold that same level of, oh my gosh, Brad Pitt is at the party or, oh my goodness, it's Meryl Streep. You know what I mean? I think she's starting to, but do you know why? Because of the AMC thing, which we need to talk about.

So that is 2021? I think so, yeah. The advertising campaign for AMC theaters. Right, because which quickly becomes like an internet sensation as well, and like a movie going sensation. People go to say it along with her. It started out as mockery because of the deep sincerity

with which that commercial is being communicated at the beginning of movies. Sure. It felt like within minutes, everyone was like, actually, no, this rocks. This makes me feel like I'm in the place where I like to be, which is going to see movies. And then you get to be a part of it.

People are still to this day in theaters in Los Angeles, clapping and happy and speaking along to that. When I saw it for the first time in 2024, when they introduced a abbreviated version, an abridged version with new films, Creed was cut out. And I was first of all, I was like, where's Creed? You did say that. I was with you.

Yeah. And then I was like, they edited it. They made it shorter. And at this point, I'm like, if I'm going to go, I'm going to sit through it. It's sort of like saying, you know, like our fathers before you do whatever. There's obviously a long history of this at the movies, the, let's all go to the lobby. You know, like the sort of like pre movie experience that is non trailer is baked in.

And for whatever reason, AMC, which has been like a failing business for the last 10 years, still kind of landed on this wonderful, weird, awkwardly sincere. It's so unlike a little a little camp. So Pitsuit and like a little camp. So I think she becomes like a little bit of a pop cultural fig... Is she wearing like a silver sequin suit? Yes. Yeah. And when we were gonna recreate that for the Ringer, I was gonna try to find a suit like that. Did you find it?

No, I didn't get that far. But it's still available. If we wanna do it, I could... You're in your suit era. You know, now is the time. That's true. But that changes everyone's understanding to her as a person, because she's doing that as Nicole Kidman. Yes, and as an ambassador of movies. Yeah.

Which is ironic given how much television she does. Yeah, but I don't watch that being like, oh great, yeah, Nicole Kidman is defending cinema. I'm like, Nicole Kidman is trying to like, she's getting what I hope was a giant paycheck that bought her 45 Subarus to prop up like Adam Aaron's GameStop experiment. So that's fine, go see movies and theaters, everyone,

and be responsible with your investments. Absolutely. We all agree with that. To me, it's more about, oh, it's like Nicole Kidman. She is, it's her meme era for lack of a better word, but you need that in this day and age. You do, you do. And I'm sure she had no idea

that that would be the outcome of this, but now she has leaned into it. No, there's a great interview where someone asks her about it and in her real time, she's like, wait, what? And her publicist is like, oh yeah, it's a thing. And she's informed that people are reciting this. I don't know. But again, she seems game.

You know? She does. Even the things that she doesn't quite expect. But again, like that has burnished Nicole Kidman in a different way. So that I do now think when people watch, whether it's like junkie Netflix show or baby girl, you are watching, you know, you're like, oh, it's Nicole Kidman who has been in my life now for five years. The queen of movies. Yeah. I was just watching her four favorites on Letterboxx.

And when she... Oh, they were good. Clueless is the first one. Clueless was the first one. All four of them were good. They were all good picks. You know, I love Letterboxx, but these people are getting tipped off beforehand that they're going to get asked by Letterboxx, so they're prepping.

You know, they're not coming up with them off the top of their head. Why wouldn't you prep? I think it would be... Because if you're a true. You know, they're not coming up with them off the top of their head. Why, why wouldn't you prep? I think it would be- Because if you're a true ambassador of cinema, you don't have to prep. I'm disgusted by you. No, listen, you're not doing your job as a person who walks red carpets

if you don't know that question's coming and you're not ready. And you should absolutely fire a publicist. I agree, I agree. Yeah, okay. She did a great job, I can't remember what her's coming and you're not ready. And you should absolutely fire publicists. I agree, I agree. She did a great job, I can't remember what her four were, but they were good. I got them, I got them right here. What are they, Bob?

Clueless, the piano teacher, piano, and a woman under the influence. Yeah, yeah. Sick. Great picks. Amazing. She also did the whole like, I only get four? This is so hard. She's also delivered via publicist 12 minutes

before they encounter the letterbox microphone. But when she saw them, she went, letterboxed! We love letterboxed! You know, and her eyes are bursting out of her head. She knows how to play the game. She's a really good celebrity. Awards history. She's been nominated for one, two, three, four, five, five Oscars.

She's won once. Her nominations are for Moulin Rouge, The Hours, Rabbit Hole, Being the Ricardos, and Lion. Her win is for The Hours. I would argue that these are not even close to her best performances. That was a watch bit from like 10 years ago. Like yelling lion in the movie, like DJ Khaled.

Being like, there's my lion! Lion! Yeah, anyway. She's won six Golden Globes. Sure. Golden Globes don't really mean anything. Tell that to Jennifer Lopez. Did you, that's the thing is when you see Jennifer Lopez longing, what she really longs for

is Nicole Kidman's stature. How do I be an elevated celebrity that is beloved, but is also celebrated as an artist? But also I need to make my own 40 minute music video with Jane Fonda and Post Malone reading the signs of the zodiac. You Post Malone head? He's very, very charming in the documentary.

Like you should actually, Everyone should watch that documentary. It's honestly riveting stuff. But he comes in to film his bit in her music video, and he is just charming her, like, instantly. Flirting with her, really good, really converted. He's really on quite a five-year run. I know one Post Malone song, I think. White Iverson.

Yeah, that's it. Um, but sure, good for him. Uh, yeah, he's doing well. He was, uh, it was fascinating to watch him stand beside Beyonce at the Christmas Day football game. I haven't watched that yet. It was good. That's what everyone said. I mean, I saw clips on the internet,

but, you know, my child had his second ear infection, so... Yeah, not ideal. But, you know, as with all those Beyoncé productions, like, this is good. She knows what she's doing. Okay, if you... Did you look at the box office, the top ten for her, for like, what are her highest grossing movies? Not until right this second, but LOL. We can't do the game of me asking you what they would have been,

but the Nicole Kidman top ten highest grossing movies worldwide is a hilarious list. I'll read the list to you right now. Number ten, Cold Mountain. Sure, makes sense. Number nine, Moulin Rouge. Big sense of the solution. Totally makes sense. Number eight, The Others. Secretly a very big movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So far so good. Number seven, just go with it. Sure, yeah. Adam Sandler movie that she makes a memorable appearance in.

Number six, Australia. Right. A movie that was not very big here, but was very big overseas. Number five, Paddington. That's right. The movie you love. She plays the villain. Number four, Batman Forever. OK, makes sense, but that movie's not very good, but OK. Number three, The Golden Compass.

Those movies were big, and this was at a time when they were trying to make it happen. It wasn't very good, but have you read those books? I haven't. They're good. I probably will with my daughter, would be my guess. OK. Number two, Aqu be my guess. OK. Number two, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

That's the one that came out like a year and a half ago? Yes, I enjoyed. No, it was, I think, 14 months ago. I enjoyed it. Oh, OK. 14 months is like almost a year and a half. Sure. Plus four months.

Math Corner. I think it was legit December 2023. It was the conclusion of the DC-EU. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Listen, like, I'm just looking ahead, new year, you know? Yeah, new year. And then number one was Aquaman. Yeah.

So who is she in the Aquaman universe? She is Aquaman's mom. Oh, sick. She is an Atlantean who comes to the shore and fucks a fisherman. Okay, thank you. That is what I was going to ask. But then does she live on the shore? Does she live on the land? She lives in Atlantis, but she pops in Earthwok or Earthwise.

What's up with it? So, is Atlantis... It's not underwater yet, so it's just a... What do you mean? I don't really know the... He's an Aquaman. He goes in the water. Yeah, so is Atlantis in the water? Yeah. But, so she lives underwater?

Yes. But she's lives underwater? Yes. But she's a human? No. She's a mer person. Oh, she goes to the shore. I don't have the terminology here. This is kind of a Midnight Boys question. So she's the water-based gene.

Correct. And then the dad. Who's the dad? I'm sure this is a spoiler. Timur Morrison, the actor who played Boba Fett. That doesn't mean anything to me, but like, what is his life? Like, he's a human. He's out there fishing?

He's a human. He's literally just a guy. So she fucks a fisherman. Okay, sorry. Okay. And they make a magical creature that becomes Jason Momoa. Is she related to Triton? I believe you're thinking of the Little Mermaid. Well, or Poseidon? It's not really that mythology.

It's kind of like soft baked into it. Okay, but it is a little bit because DC is borrowing from all of that stuff all of the time. It's kind of soft baked into it. Is she like the sister? Like what's, it's... The sister of who? Of Poseidon.

No, I can't recall who the, oh, Javier Bardem is the king of Atlantis, I think. Who is... Let's take a look at Aquaman. This is really worth our time as we have to go through this person's entire filmography. Or maybe was Dolph Lundgren the king? This is all so confusing. Javier Bardem was King Triton in The Little Mermaid.

Yes. Not in this movie. Yeah, those behind the scenes of him filming that are in the water tank or quite something. Hmm. Well, Patrick Wilson played Orm. Okay, yeah. He was known as the Ocean Master. That was my favorite performance in that movie.

Sort of like the air boss. Yes, yes. I don't know, maybe there was not... Nicole Kidman was Atlanta, the queen of Atlantis, mother of Arthur and Orm. I don't know, maybe she doesn't have a husband of any kind? Yeah. Is she a single mom?

I mean, maybe. Wow. Speaking of, you will, girl. But it's sort of like, so is she the, if she's the descent, like the, if, if. This is why you should have joined me for this episode. You bailed on me on this one. I remember very vividly, I think the first Aquaman movie

episode I did with David Shoemaker. I think I maybe wasn't invited. Because sometimes you don't think I'm going to be a good Hank. But I asked the important questions about underwater monarchies, you know? Let's pivot to Nicole Kidman's career. She's made so many movies. This is going to be very hard. I'm going to be really honest. So I did my best to prep for this, but when I like finally sat down,

I didn't remember 45 movies and I was like, oh, okay. We're not going to get through all of them. Uh, I mean, for starters, the first two, four, six movies she makes are in Australia and I haven't seen them. Okay. Um, they're mostly romantic comedies. She's usually playing supporting parts. Her character is often on the VHS box, But throughout the 80s, before her big breakthrough,

these are relatively small films, so they're all gonna be read. The titles of those movies are Bush Christmas, BMX Bandits, which many people joke about now that she was a star in a movie called BMX Bandits, Willis and Burke, Wind Rider, The Bit Part, and Emerald City. Maybe some Australians are listening. I know we have an Australian contingent of listeners. Oh, we do? Oh, absolutely.

Can we go to Australia? I don't know. Can we go? Remember, you can go to Australia if you want to. Eternal summer, you know? So we're going to spend summer there right now. Sure, you can go and you can report back. Next January, let's do all of January and February.

OK. You want to do the awards race from Australia. Oh, right, that's tough, like both timewise and school is obviously an issue now. If Australia would want to do the awards race? Oh right, that's tough like both timewise and you know school is obviously... If Australia would like to invite the big picture to its wonderful continent we would love to come and celebrate films. We'll find a reasonable time to do so hopefully not in the dead of winter and maybe we'll get a chance to see BM explain it. Yeah, not in the dead of winter there. Yes. In the dead of winter here. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Okay. Um, 1989, Dead Calm. This is her big breakthrough performance in a very small thriller directed by Philip

Noyce, co-starring Sam Neill and Billy Zane. Billy Zane! Billy Zane as a... A menace on the water once again. A madman, yes, exactly. Sort of preparing for his role in Titanic. All three of them are electrifying in this movie. This movie is great.

If you have not seen Dead Calm, I would highly recommend it. In the spirit of the Hall of Fame and all my shtick about the breakthrough, this is one where I feel like at a minimum it needs to be yellow. And it feels like, it feels pretty green to me. To your shtick about like the breakthrough performance

is really her international, her Hollywood breakthrough is Days of Thunder. Which comes one year later. And that is obviously she plays like the love interest who is a doctor in Daytona. Yes. But she's also Australian and is just there to be like, you're a great Tom Cruise. Yes. So it's- Cole Trickle.

Yeah, despite, obviously that's very- You know where Cole Trickle's from? Where? Eagle Rock, California. She is? No, he is. Oh, he is. His character is from Eagle Rock.

Oh, Cole is. Oh, okay, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, all the greats started in Eagle Rock. Yeah, absolutely. Ben, Matt, Barry, Obama. Yeah. Me.

You didn't start in Eagle Rock, but I hear you. I didn't start there, but my son- Nor did any of those people. But my son, yeah, sure. You know, but like we all... It was formative. Days of Thunder, it's important to her tabloid and her celebrity thing, but I would...

I agree that Dead Calm is a more exciting video. It's one of her... Days of Thunder is one of her biggest movies, and obviously it kicks off her relationship with Tom, but for her, I don't think it's a Hall of Fame movie. I agree. Should we yellow it just for the purposes of this discussion? So, Dead Calm and Days of Thunder will be yellowed.

1991's Flirting, which is a film in which she plays a high school girl in Australian production, John Dugan, her Tendiway Newton, and her best friend, Naomi Watts. This is a pretty good movie, a very enjoyable kind of dramedy that in most people's careers, you would be like, this is yellow. We have so many movies to go through that it's hard, but I do want to just cite.

I think flirting is going to be red, but it is a pretty good movie. Okay. 1992, Far and Away. Ron Howard. You skipped Billy Bathgate. Oh, Billy Bathgate. Robert Benton's gangster drama starring Dustin Hoffman. I believe she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in this movie.

Roger Ebert famously located her sense of humor in his review of this movie. Um, it is way too long and overstuffed and not very good, so I would say it's red. What a cast, though. Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, and overstuffed and not very good. So I would say it's red. What a cast though. Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Lauren Dean, Bruce Willis, Stephen Hill,

Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi. Just more Kelly I see down here. Okay, it's not going in. Big fussy Hollywood production that didn't totally land. Some people like it. Okay, far and away. Far and away. Our Irish representative, speak on it.

This movie's not that good. It's not that good, I rewatched it last night, I hadn't seen it in a long time, and I rewatched part of it. What are we doing? Yeah, this is a tough one. So Tom Cruise is a bare-knuckle boxer who is traversing the land trying to make a better life for he and his partner.

Yeah, I would not say that his Irish accent really lands. No, I think they're actually weirdly both miscast in this movie. Yeah. She's not bad. Yeah, it's fine. At the end, he just, he rides the horse, you know, shades of future Tom Cruise. He's just going so fast for a very long time.

I haven't seen this in a really long time, but I remember when I first saw it, I did not like it. And I'm predisposed to liking a movie like this for a variety of reasons. Well, but it's sort of like, it's like fake epic. I mean, at the end, they just do like this giant, like, it's called a land race. And it is like cruise for five minutes,

just riding, you know, as fast as he possibly can with tons of other people. And you're like, wow, we used to spend money and make movies. That's true. Something you do see in a lot of her movies here is an extraordinary production value. 1993's Malice, with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Yeah. This is the Alec Baldwin, I am God speech.

Sure. This is George C. Scott and Nicole Kidman in an erotic thriller. Yes. A nasty little erotic thriller. Absolutely nuts. Extremely fun movie. Is it a good movie? I don't know if it's a good movie, but it's, I mean...

You think it's important for her? Well, I mean, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen Malice, fast forward. Okay. I don't even remember you're gonna reveal the ending. No, no, no, it hinges on her. Okay. You know, and even that like gives a lot of it away and that there's like a lot going,

there's more going on there than just being the doctor in the, you know, the NASCAR movie. Yeah. And that is something, and it subverts your expectations of what she's doing. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, sort of absurdly, but... No, it's a very entertaining little movie. Yellow. It's yellow. I agree. It's definitely yellow. It did well at the box office. It puts her in like a different kind of class as an actress.

Okay. I'll go yellow. 1993 is My Life, which we recently discussed on our Michael Keaton Mount Rushmore episode. Yeah, I watched this while pregnant. Why? Why did you do that to me? This was Michael Keaton is dying,

so he's capturing the final days of his life for his unborn child. Yeah. Very cool. Listen, it's, I didn't make, it's- She's the wife. Yeah, she's- And she many times is cast as the wife.

She's nice. It's not going in. This is red. Yeah. 1995 Batman Forever, she plays Chase Meridian, who is of course the damsel in distress to Val Kilmer's Batman. Mm-hmm.

This is the Batman with, who is the villain? Two-Face is the Batman, the villain in this movie. Two-Face and the Riddler, I believe. I mean, don't ask me. I did give a- Jim Carrey's The Riddler? A child in my life, a Batman Lego, Batman Joker Lego for Christmas this year.

So, you know, I'm part of the problem now. My- I think he was very happy. Wife took my daughter to Target the other day and she was looking at the toys and my wife said, you could have one thing under $5. And the one thing that she chose was a Batmobile. Wow, under $5?

Yeah, well, I mean, it was just Christmas. That's true. No, no, not that she wasn't allowed to spend more. Just that it was, um... The Batmobile is under $5. Oh, it was a Hot Wheel. Oh, I see. Okay. A Batmobile Hot Wheel. Um, okay. Batman Forever, I see. A Batmobile Hot Wheel. Okay. Okay.

Batman Forever, I think important to her visibility as a movie star, but I don't think it's really a performance anyone cares about, right? I don't. So red. Yes, red? Red, sure. Yeah. Have you seen Batman Forever?

Yes, but I didn't revisit it and I don't remember. I saw all the Batmans, you know? This is the one, this is where Chris O'Donnell comes in, right? No, that is Batman and Robin. He is the titular Robin. Oh, okay. Well, maybe I didn't see this one. Also, Alicia Silverstone is Batgirl in the film.

That I definitely saw. Yeah, that's Batman and Robin. Okay, and that's George Clooney. Yes. But this is the Valkymer one, right? This is the Valkymer one. Yeah, I've seen it. Okay, great.

1995 to die for. This is my favorite Nicole Kidman vacuum. Yeah, I've seen it. Okay, great. Uh, 1995 to Die For. This is my favorite Nicole Kidman movie. Yeah. Um, I think this is her best performance. It's a Gus Van Zand satire, I guess, about a real life story that was actually, I think there's a Max documentary that just came out last year about this real life story.

Okay. About a woman who is an aspiring broadcaster and her relationship with her husband and her quest for fame. A movie that is like the great script that is played very amusingly by her where she's sort of like giving away everything and nothing at the same time

and shows I think like her range as a performer. It's comedy, but it's not slapstick. Super black comedy. Yeah, yeah, but it's not... Super black comedy. Yeah, yeah, it's really, it is messed up. And again, this thing of there is... There are like five things going on here, and you're communicating all of them, while also communicating what your character thinks

they should communicate. So, it's, I mean, it's all time. Really great movie. Great Joaquin Phoenix performance in this movie. Great Matt Dillon performance, great Ileana Douglas performance. Like just a really, really good movie. Casey Affleck. Yeah, very early Casey Affleck.

That's going green. I think that's our first hard green. 1996, The Portrait of a Lady. So where do you stand on Henry James? I haven't actually read a lot of Henry James. Really? Yeah, I don't know why. I'm surprised to hear you say that.

Henry James is very important in the plot of Notting Hill. So I support that. Okay, turn to the screw, haven't read it? No. Okay. I don't know why, I skipped right over that in my education. Should I go back? Is that what I should do this year?

I'll read Henry James if you read Bridget Jones. No deal. The Portrait of a Lady I think is her leveraging some of her power and taste, some of her celebrity to get bigger movies made. This is a Jane Campion movie, her first collaboration though not her last with Campion. And it is a simultaneously faithful, but also experimental adaptation of the James novel that I rewatched and found extremely dull. Um, the story itself is really cool, but I think it's kind of like meanders through a lot of its story. And it reminded me a little bit of reading Henry James, so I admit to some bias here where I just...

It's an eye-your-thing. It's not my thing. Um, I think some people like it. I think it's one of Campion's worst movies personally, and I'm a big fan of her movies. So I wouldn't put it in. No, I, it's not particularly memorable. Okay. 1997 The Peacemaker.

Yeah. This is George Clooney's big, noisy, post-ER feature film starring breakout slash non-breakout. Right, because it didn't. Didn't break out. Didn't hit. Didn't like utterly fail, but it didn't do what was expected of it. I didn't revisit this.

I haven't seen it in forever. And I wish that I had, because in some ways, it's like I wish they would make a million peacemakers right now, you know? Like it is very much like, please make an international thriller starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. It doesn't matter if it's that good. Like I just would like to watch that every week.

But I didn't rewatch it because I was like, I don't think this is going to go in. So I need to refocus my time. It's not. I mean, she's playing, you know, a doctor who's trying to avoid a nuclear disaster of some kind. and he's the heroic, I think, governmental figure working beside her. It's, you know, standard action fare. It's just not that great. Okay, 1988, Practical Magic.

I would not say this is, like, one of my big Nicole Kidman movies, but it is one of Nicole Kidman's big movies. This is, like, has a very big following. Yeah. Was this before... Hold on. When is Hocus Pocus? Before this, yeah, Hocus Pocus is before this, but it is, yeah, it's like slightly more grown up Hocus Pocus.

It's witches. It's Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock are witches. And it's gals you like. Yes. I think this is among her most beloved movies. So my impression is that this should go in, but I'm not a practical magic expert. Well, let's yellow it for now.

Okay, we'll yellow it for now. But we see you, practical magic fans. Absolutely. I don't want to disrespect that. Green, green, green, green, green, green. Yeah, we're going on a little run here. 1999 Eyes Wide Shut. Obviously a masterpiece Stanley Kubrick's Christmas movie about men and women failing to fuck properly

and so creating enormous discontent between one another. Did you see, not just to make this about, like, our friends, but you did one of your little stacks? For Nicole, yes. Yeah, and did you see, like, my best friend Katie was just like, Eyes Wide Shut, Eyes Wide Shut, Eyes Wide Shut in the comments? Like, Katie, I got you! Okay? Also, you can text me. I did see that, yes. Yeah, and did you see like my best friend Katie was just like, eyes wide shut, eyes wide shut, eyes wide shut in the comments? Katie, I got you, okay? Also you can text me.

I did see that, yes. Yeah, obviously, eyes wide shut is going in. I mean, for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, a very complicated movie in a variety of ways. Yes. A movie that obviously. The beginning of the end. Well, we don't know.

The beginning of our understanding of the end. Presumably, you know, the incredible amount of attention that was put on this movie and their relationship. The fact that its production was so elongated, that it's the last thing that Kubrick made. He died before the movie was released. The suspicions of how it had been edited and what was taken in and put out of the movie.

And then the fact that it didn't become a widely acclaimed film, in fact, was heavily criticized upon its release. You guys were wrong. Very obviously a fascinating, gorgeous, confusing, wonderful movie. Love Eyes Wide Shut automatically. And particularly Nicole Kidman's performance is awesome in this movie.

She's so alluring, so mysterious, and also so vulnerable and open, and a nice little beginning of the capstone to Baby Girl. They're very much in conversation with each other. Completely. OK. 2001 Moulin Rouge. Green, green, green, green, green, green, green.

This is. Listen, practically. This is. OK. And I welcome The Hate, the most annoying movie ever made. The most. Horrible take. It's a horrible take.

This movie fucking sucks. I watched it again last night, and I was like, who, what, how? I know why it's loved, and I know that it's loved, and I know that I'm sharing a thing that people hate. Just hold this feeling. Hold this feeling. Uh-huh. Bottle it. Uh-huh.

And know that this is how I feel listening to you talk, like, about so many things. I don't care. How old was I in 2001? I was 17 years old. and know that this is how I feel listening to you talk, like, about so many things. I don't care. How old was I in 2001? I was 17 years old. Elephant love song. Like, you are there and you were 17 and you know, or you were not there and you don't know.

And that's okay. Like, I'm aware that this plays like Wicked played to me for a huge number of people. But I'm telling you, like I was there and it was... But with turn of the 20th century, France singing Smells Like Teen Spirit in a can-can. I mean, kill me, like literally shoot me in the face. This movie sucks, guys.

It's fucking horrible. We're gonna look back on this and be like, what were we doing? No, we're already looking back and just being like, it does require a lot of chutzpah to just build the whole movie around just like Roxanne being the big, it's fine. I love it. I know people love it. I know. I don't want to take their joy from them.

It's definitely going in. It's a huge box office success. She's nominated for an Academy Award. She's very good in the movie. I don't think Ewan McGregor is very good in this movie. No. She's giving it her all. It's obviously like... It's one of the most overwhelmingly made movies ever.

The amount of cuts, the artificiality of the sets and the world. I mean, it looks like it was made in MS Paint. Like, it looks terrible, guys. Sure. Yes, I agree with you. Like, Jurassic Park was made eight years before this movie. I think this movie is a masterpiece and I think Baz Luhrmann is a visionary. I think it's eight years before this movie. Come on. I think this movie is a masterpiece, and I think Baz Luhrmann is a visionary. I think it's a five star movie.

Baz Luhrmann is a visionary. Honestly, shame on you trying to cater to the children that listen to this podcast. I'm not catering to anybody. This has been one of my favorite movies for years. You're not catering to the children. I'm a grown up. I fear no criticism about this take.

This movie is ferocious. That's fine. You're allowed to have that opinion and it's going in. It is going in. I agree. It's also hugely important to... It finds her like a new, very wide audience. 100%. Yeah, it's a huge, huge movie. Arguably the most important movie in her career, right?

Yes, I guess in terms of... It's an original story. She's singing and dancing. She's getting awards recognition. It's original, but that's okay. You know what I mean, though. Okay, 2001, The Others. I think this is also going in. I just rewatched this again last night.

Alejandro Ameniabar's Ghost Story. Just came up on the Ghost Stories episode that we did not so long ago. Which one was that? I can't remember. Honestly, we've done so many of these. I don't think I listened to that one, but I'm a devoted listener of the big picture. Maybe it was last year.

It could have been last year. Beautiful movie. If you, 24 year later, spoiler alert, insane twist. Like one of the great theater twists. Coming hot on the heels of The Sixth Sense, since these two movies are sort of paired in many ways. She's really good at that, yeah. And the way that you were describing Kidman's performance,

that sense of like reserve, is on display, I think, at its best in this movie. Not a very funny movie, not a very fun movie per se, or a stately quiet movie. The exact polar opposite of Moulin Rouge, and the fact that they happened in the same year shows like her incredible dynamic strength. The amount of restraint that I am showing not like bursting into the Moulin Rouge version of Heroes, it's just really, I should get a prize.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Definitely, you should get a prize. 2001 Birthday Girl. I haven't a prize. Mm-hmm, yeah. Definitely, you should get a prize. 2001, Birthday Girl. I haven't seen this. It's a thriller starring, is it Ben Chaplin? I think Ben Chaplin. I don't know, I haven't seen it.

About a Russian girl. Okay. It's not very good. Okay. This is one of those things where it was like, okay, so in the same year she released Moulin Rouge, The Others, and Birthday Girl. This is an actress who things where it was like, okay, so in the same year she released Moulin Rouge, The Others and Birthday Girl. This is an actress who really likes working.

And three very different kinds of performances. Birthday Girl was not a success and looks a lot more like a lot of the movies that are coming later in her career. 2002, The Hours. Okay, so this one's for her Oscar. Don't like this movie and sort of a lame performance. Not a lame performance, she's perfectly fine.

So this is an adaptation of the Michael Cunningham novel. It's like a nesting doll take on Mrs. Dalloway, the Virginia Woolf novel. Nicole Kamen plays Virginia Woolf in one of three timelines. And she's just kind of siloed off you being unhappy as Virginia Woolf famously was. As she wears the nose, so she doesn't really look like herself,

this comes very soon after her divorce from Tom Cruise and it all comes together and she wins best actress. So I guess we have to put it in, but do I want to put it in? No. Let's yellow it. Okay. I'm not a fan of this movie either. I do understand why she's won. I think it is a little bit of a like, whoops, we should have given it to her

for Moulin Rouge and the others in a collective way and did not do that. And so we're kind of making up for it because of the prosthetics and the periodies. And the narrative and the divorce and that was the whole thing. Yeah. She's coming off of an incredible run of success. Yeah. Also, she had the narrative and the divorce and that was the whole thing. She's coming off of an incredible run of success that is getting recognized. It's just getting recognized in kind of the most boring, Oscar-y way. 2003's Dogville, very challenging Lars von Trier movie.

I think it's debatable whether or not it should go in. I think this is the beginning of her really taking chances because this is a really hard movie that is hard to watch at times, that it clearly was hard to make. Right. She did not return for the continuation of this. Manderley, Bryce Dallas Howard, was recast in her role. I think I'm getting that right.

If I'm getting that wrong, excuse me. I have some other quote unquote challenging movies that I want to put in. So let's yellow this. Yeah. Okay. We'll acknowledge Dogville, you know, Avantriere, complicated figure in movie history. He's made some amazing films. This is among his best,

certainly among his best American productions. Right. Okay. 2003 is The Human Stain, which is a really, really bad movie. Another Robert Benton movie. An adaptation of, is it the Phil Broth novel. Which is based on Anatole Brouillard, who was a famous literary critic in his life story,

which I weirdly studied in a long class in college. He's one of the great literary critics of all time, but has this incredibly complicated personal story that if you haven't seen it, I guess is worth learning about. He is notably played by Anthony Hopkins in this movie, which I would say is a mistake. Okay. Something I just want to put out there.

The human scene is not going in. Okay. 2003's Cold Mountain. I didn't re-watch it. Did you re-watch it? I did. Anthony Minghella's follow-up to The Talented Mr. Ripley. Yes, which was the follow-up to The English Patient. Two movies I adore. I do not adore Cold Mountain.

Okay. This is also based on a big novel. Yeah. And Nicole Kidman has sort of the thankless part. Renee Zellweger is her, like, sidekick friend. And she won an Academy Award for it. And she's just sort of pining and being beautiful and writing letters. She's the one who falls in love with Jude Law. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Jude Law is just the Penelope part.

Yeah. Um, I mean, she looks very beautiful, but eh. Yeah, at the time, I was not a huge fan of this movie either. But, you know, she did, she got an Oscar nomination for this movie. Did she not? I don't actually know if she did. Jude Law did. Let me see here.

And Renee Zellweger did. No, you're right. She did not. Yeah. She did not. Okay. I feel comfortable making this read. We don't have to put that in. Let me see here. And Renee Zellweger did. No, you're right, she did not. She did not. Okay. I feel comfortable making this red. We don't have to put that in. Yeah. With respect. Okay, now's your time. Well, she's very good in The Stepford Wives,

and it's another example of her taking a role and giving a performance that plays with the public perception of her. And with the idea of perfection and with the idea of reserve. And I do also think this introduces the Stepford Wives to like a new generation of people. She's really good in it. Like the movie is... It's not very good. Not good and not as good as the original. Directed by the great Frank Oz.

I think we can yellow it. I think it's probably red. Okay. I don't think it's going to make the cut. Yeah. Directed by the great Frank Oz. I think we can yellow it. I think it's probably red. Okay. I don't think it's going to make a cut. 2004's Birth. Green. I agree. I love, this is my favorite Jonathan Glazer film.

This is one of the best films of the century. I think which Jonathan Glazer movie we should consider for 25 for 25 is a very interesting conversation. Because he's made four movies. This would be my pick. This is a movie that was very controversial and then ignored in its time about a young woman who loses, or about a woman who loses her husband and who is about to be remarried.

And a 10-year-old boy knocks on her door in her apartment in New York City and says, I am Sean, I'm your husband. And this 10-year year old boy is convinced that he is the man who died, who she was married to. And they begin this complicated relationship trying to unpack what is really going on. Just beautiful beguiling movie.

Yeah, and it's the flavor of unraveling that she does in this movie is again, like really controlled. And I guess she unravels in a lot of movies. That's kind of one of her specialties, but she finds a new way to do it every time. And like the weirdness and the hope that goes into just this absolutely messed up situation is... And she just goes for it.

Like that is the Nicole Kidman thing, is that she's not like ever trying to make it prettier or make you like her. So... She is stunning in this movie. She has a very short haircut. Yeah. There's a sequence, there's a long sequence at the opera that is just a tight closeup on her as she is sort of losing control of her feelings.

That is amazing. There's a collection on the Criterion channel right now that is a bunch of Nicole Kidman movies. This movie is like not available in Blu-ray 4K for example. And I don't think it's streaming in a ton of places. It is streaming on Criterion right now. I'll call all my friends and let them know and they'll get you a 4K.

I would love for there to be a 4K. I mean, there should be a 4K. If there's a 4K of... I don't know what else. A lot of the movies on this list have a 4K. Birth does not. Um, I'll try to remember what the other films are. I know Margot at the Wedding is also on Criterion right now, along with some others.

2005 The Interpreter. This is a Sidney Pollock thriller, starring Sean Penn, that I watched, I think for the first time last year. And it's fine. I remember seeing it in theaters. This is another peacemaker thing, you know? Yeah, it's not quite as like actiony. It's more of a thriller.

That's fine. Just like make, you know, fairly generic, mediocre, international intrigue films starring movie stars and I'll watch every one of them. I didn't get to revisit this, but I think I would have had a nice time at the movies in my home. It's the ultimate two and a half star movie. It's not bad by any means.

But it's the genre of two and a half star movie that I like. Okay. Well, it's read in this formulation. Nevertheless, I hear what you're saying. Okay, now is a really important conversation for you. Do do, do do. Are you gonna make the case for 2005's Bewitched?

It's not good, she's good in it. It's not. Written and directed by. By my beloved Nora Ephron. Yes. Adapted from the TV show. Yes. Bobby, do people of your generation know about Bewitched?

I don't, but people in my generation could. Jack, thumbs up, thumbs down through the control room, thumbs down, okay. You don't know what the television show Bewitched is? You didn't have access to Nick at Night. Well, I know what it is, but it was not important in my life. I did have Nick at Night, but they were 100 hours

of Bewitched. This is a Nick at Night divide. They were doing important. You didn't have Nick at Night growing up? I did have Nick at Night, but they were playing nothing but Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Oh, God. Wow. That's so crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where it would, like, again, open the schools. Yeah. Nick and Night was the school. I can't say that Bewitched is, like, cultural enrichment, but it was a signature. It was one of 25 shows that was on Nick and Night that we probably watched all the time. I've seen so many, yeah, because there was nothing else on. Bewitched was a great sitcom.

She's very funny. This movie, I think is underrated, but not good. Like, it was considered a fiasco at the time. And I think what Nora Ephron is going for about this blurring of the Isabelle Bigelow actress character and Samantha, the real witch, and the sort of like, persona-esque, like, are they the same person thing, is kind of cool.

No, it's cool. And a lot of the industry stuff is, like, very good because Nora Evron knows it so well. And it's like, filmed in LA, I think, you know, it's like... All this backlot stuff going on with shooting the show. And like Beverly Hills Hotel and all sorts of it, yeah. It's weirdly like, it's like all wrong, but there's something very cool underneath it that I like.

It's definitely red, it was not a big success. But it's an interesting, like, if we ever did a Nora Ephron thing, which we actually haven't done, it would be cool to have spent some time talking about it, because I haven't rewatched it in a while. Okay, 2006, Fur. This is about Diana Arbus, the photographer who shot unusual people in our world and had a curiosity. It's interesting. It's kind of a very small character study. The kind of movie that, you know, she made me wish so she could make fur.

It's okay. It's red. It's not going in. 2006 is Happy Feet. This is George Miller's animated Penguin movie that I wish I liked a little bit more. She does have a significant part in it, but this is a film with her country person, George. Yeah. You know, I didn't include it in the box office list

because it's just a voice performance, but it would be very high in her box office successes. I didn't know that that was one of your filters. It is in this case. Wags to Happy Feet, know that that was one of your filters. It is in this case. Okay. Wags to Happy Feet, is that a big one for you? It actually is.

Yeah, I knew you were going to say that. Although I don't think it's very good. I remember watching it a lot and not really liking it, like by the second half, but it's really fun when the penguins are dancing at the beginning. You're like, whoa, what's going on here? Oh, I've seen the clip of the penguins dancing. Yeah. I think that this might actually be the first time that I realized Prince was cool,

was because they sing Kiss in the opening, like five minutes of this movie. I was like, oh, what's this song? This song has a little juice behind it. And then I discovered Prince. It's fun. I tried to watch it with Alice when we were doing Furiosa, and she was not really super into it.

So I'm going to say Happy Feet is Red. This came out concurrently with March of the Penguins, which was like a documentary about Emperor Penguins. And I was like, well, if I'm gonna have to watch penguins on screen, this is much more fun than March of the Penguins. In 2007, The Invasion. Did you see this? No, I didn't. Okay, so this stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

This is an Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who directed Downfall, the film about Hitler. Um... I wish this movie was better. As someone who is dedicated a lot of time studying all of the adaptations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it doesn't really get there.

It has some style. The performances are pretty good. This story always works for me. Yeah. It always feels resonant because it always feels like we're living in a dystopia where people are not being their real selves. But it's not a hit, so I'm making it right.

That's fine, yeah. 2007 Margot at the Wedding. Green, green, green, green, green, green, green. Um... I mean, this is, it's all so uncomfortable that it borders on unwatchable. It's the most unpleasant movie. It is so unpleasant. It is expertly done and knows exactly what it's that it borders on unwatchable.

It is so unpleasant. It is expertly done and knows exactly what it's... It's trying to be unpleasant. Yeah. This is Noah Baumbach's... I think it's his follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, is that right? Yes. And it stars Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Lee and Jack Black.

Nicole Kidman is a single mother who is... borderline repellent? Yeah, she's awful. Yeah, really nasty person. But the movie doesn't do the thing that like, when you are introduced to a nasty... You know what it is really a neat little pairing with? It's hard truths. Which, have you seen that yet?

No, no, no, I'm gonna see it. So when you see that, I think you'll see a little bit of it. I think it's a really, really, really sharp movie. Great Jennifer Jason Lee performance in this movie too. You think it's green? Yeah, she is just so vividly awful. Yeah, she's really good in this. In a way it's like, and again, just like the absolute, I'm not going to try to make

you like me even for a tiny second. Yeah. Like this came out, I think Rachel getting married is like 2008. But so there was like this era of actresses you like being really awful at small family weddings. And how he's very good in Rachel at the wedding and is dealing with like, it's a slightly different, it's someone who has done a lot of wrong, you know?

And as opposed to just like an awful person, but she's not as ugly as Nicole Kimmin is. Like Nicole Kimmin goes for it. I like your certainty about this being green. I do also remember, I think that I made my dad see Squid and the Whale and then Margot at the wedding, and he refused to see a Noah Baumbach film. I'd like, I think for the rest of his life, I don't know.

Do you think he considered that maybe he played a part in making you a person who likes Noah Baumbach movies? That would be an interesting conversation for you guys to have. 2007, The Golden Compass. Um, this is not going in. I don't think so. I... What, is this book called The Golden Compass? The first one is not going in. I don't think so. Yeah. I... what... is this book called the Golden Compass?

The first one is, it's a series. What are the others called? Um, oh, I don't remember, but I think it's the Golden Compass series. It's Philip Pullman. Philip Pullman. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're quite something. They're very... they're dense and they have a lot more,

you know, it's like fantasy with like religious ideas, really, that they're a little subversive, I suppose. This is a talking polar bear? Yeah, there's, this is also the thing where you have, it's called a, golden comets people don't come at me on the pronunciations, I don't know whether it's like demon or daemon, what are we doing here? But you have like a little person who's following you,

not a person, a sort of spectral creature that's an animal that represents things about you, but also it can do things for you. I see. This series is called the His Dark Materials trilogy. His Dark Materials, that's right. Because then they, yes, thank you. It was adapted into the TV show. That's right, it was the TV show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was only called the Golden Compass Materials trilogy. His Dark Materials, that's right. Because then they, yes, thank you. It was adapted into the TV show.

That's right, it was the TV show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was only called The Golden Compass in North America. In the rest of the world, it was called Northern Lights, the first book. Oh, okay. So it's a little fun fact from Wikipedia for you guys. Yeah.

This was a reunion from the same year, the invasion of Daniel Craig. Daniel Craig's also in this movie. Oh, right. In the same year, Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman made a movie together. Okay. Two movies together, very weird.

2008 Australia. I just watched in its entirety, the extended version of this movie, which is called Far Away Downs. Okay. This is Nicole Kidman's reunion with Baz Luhrmann. It was, you know, I think like a two and a half hour, almost three hour movie. And then it was expanded into a four hour feature series.

So you sat down and watched four hours. Yeah, maybe three and a half hours. Yeah, what'd you do while… Responded to some emails, you know. I watched the first hour pretty intently to get the vibe. I got the vibe. You know, listeners of the show know, Baz is not really my thing. I really loved the first two Baz Luhrmann movies. Strictly Ballroom and Romeo and Juliet. Great movies.

Everything since then, I can't even, I can't hear it. Even the Gatsby, I just can't get into it all. And this one was really bad. And I regret spending three and a half hours watching it. You didn't see it. I saw it when it came out. I didn't revisit it. Yeah, it was, uh, it's Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Um... Oh my God, we have so many more movies. Okay, let's go a little faster. Number... I'm really hungry. 2009, this is Rob Marshall's Daniel Day-Lewis musical. Sure. Nicole even has a very small part in this movie.

It's also a disastrous story. So it's red. 2010 is a hard one to talk about. Rabbit Hole. Oscar nominated for this movie. This is our introduction to Miles Teller, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, which I think is his follow-up to Hedwig. Maybe Short Bus came between them.

Very good movie and a very good performance. Very small movie. Did you ever see this movie? I did at the time and I am not revisiting it because of obvious reasons. between them. Very good movie and a very good performance. Very small movie. Did you ever see this movie? I did at the time and I am not revisiting it because of obvious reasons. It's a really, really hard movie about parents who've lost a child. And I haven't seen it in a long time either, but I do feel like it's one of the best things she's done. I would say we should at least yellow it because it's damn good. Okay, that's fine.

Although it does not have like a, I feel like it doesn't really have much of a reputation these days. Anyhow, 2011 just go with it. Now, if Bill Simmons were sitting in my seat, this would be auto green. Right. This is a movie that his family loves. Sure. I rewatched it last night.

You did? Yeah. I wouldn't say that it is my favorite of the Adam Sandler takes all of his friends to a beautiful destination for an extended period of time films. I also, like, don't think Nicole Kidman's that good in it. She's fine, and she kind of has a thankless part,

but it's like not, it's not that funny. What would you say is your favorite of the Adam Sandler brings all of his friends on a vacation with him? Ah. You don't mess with the Zohan? I liked the first Murder Mystery. Oh, yeah, you did like me. Ah. You don't mess with the Zohan? I liked the first Murder Mystery. Oh yeah, you did like it. Yeah.

Okay, second one. Yeah, but you know, it's that they're on a boat in the Mediterranean and they're doing Agatha Christie send up, that was good by me. It's a good call. Just Go With It is red. 2011's Trust Pass is the film I was referring to earlier with Nicholas Cage.

Haven't seen it, so it's red. Okay. No offense to the fine people who seen it, so it's red. Okay. Um, no offense to the fine people who made Trespass. 2012's The Paperboy. Right. This is Lee Daniels' 1950s set melodrama. Right. In which, remind me, is it Nicole Kidman

pisses on Zac Efron? Yes, correct. I think it's green. I think this is one of the funniest performances. Incredibly brave, really weird movie. If you like, I like Camp Nicole Kidman. I don't want the Moulin Rouge version. I want this version.

I don't disagree with you. So, this is a very fun movie. It's ridiculous. But it was, everyone is leaning into it. It was a real thing at the time. Yeah, McConaughey is leaning into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. David O'Yellow-O.

We can yellow it, but I think it's a lot of fun. How many greens do we have right now? That's a good thing to know. One, two, three, four, five, six. Okay, yeah, yellow seems fine. Things get a little rocky in the back half here, so I'm not too worried about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

2013 Stoker, tricky one. Park Chan-wook, divisive movie. I think this is his only English language film. She has the lead role. She's opposite Matthew Good. Very steamy movie. Mia Wasikowska as well. I love this movie.

I loved it when it came out. I don't remember where I put it on my list back in 2013 when I was just putting them on Tumblr, but I seem to remember it being in the top 10, maybe the top 15. It's really cool, it got really ignored. She also goes into like a real movie dead zone after this movie.

Yes. Where there's a bunch of stuff that just doesn't work or doesn't hit or isn't good. I don't know if Stoker, when I announced that we were doing this, a lot of people were like Stoker, Otto Green, bro. But it's a bit of, you know, it's for the cinephiles. Speak your truth.

Let's yellow it so we can come back to it, because I really like Stoker. Yeah. 2013, The Railway Man, have not seen the film. Nor have I. Okay, 2014, that's red, Bob. 2014, Grace of Monaco, I watched this movie this week. Not good.

One's so boring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so boring. It's only about Prince Rainier negotiating taxes. I mean, I don't... While she's not an actor anymore? Yeah. What?

I don't know because there's like all sorts of rumors and sad stuff. And I mean, and like the way that she dies is also very... Grace, Princess Grace, Grace Kelly. But it was years later when she died. It's like they're focusing on this like... I don't know. I didn't make the movie. So strange. But this is also sort of like the Pablo Lorraine project like before Jackie.

It is, but I would argue what happens with less craft. It's Olivier Dahan, I think, is the filmmaker who made La Vie en Rose. Right. So it sounds like it should be good, but it is not good. This is also right around the time that Naomi Watts makes her Princess Diana movie. So they're both trying to do like the famous...

That's right. ...dead blondes thing. That's right. Anyway. This? It's not going in. I agree, it's not going in. The next movie before I go to sleep I also haven't seen.

Its distributor in the United States was Clarious Entertainment, which is a company I've never heard of. Don't know. It stars Mark Strong, Colin Firth, and Nicole Kidman. Oh. What's it about? It's directed by Rowan Joffe. A psychological thriller based on an S.J. Watson novel. I mean, maybe I would like that.

You might. It might be like The Interpreter. It's not going in. Okay. No, it's not. 2014's Paddington? Doesn't need to go in. It might be like the interpreter. It's not going in. Okay, no, no, it's not. Red. 2014's Paddington? Doesn't need to go in. We can, honorary yellow. Okay.

She's the villain. She's a taxidermist. Millicent Clyde. Right, she's a taxidermist. And you know, there's a whole thing about her father and whatever. Paddington too is preferred in my household as it is among the dads of Paddington 2 is preferred in my household, as it is among the dads of Paddington,

I understand that. I think it is a cinematically higher achievement, but also Knox's feedback is that there's more Paddington in Paddington 2. I see, I see. We don't need all that origin story stuff. That's just something to think about. Yeah.

Well, yeah. It's kind of like First Avenger versus the Winter Soldier. Sure, yeah, okay. Okay, Paddington Yellow, but it's not going in. 2015 Strangerland like First Avenger versus The Winter Soldier. Sure, yeah. Okay. Okay. 2015... Paddington Yellow, but it's not going in. 2015 Strangeland, I don't know what this is. Uh, haven't seen it. Probably won't be seeing it.

There's only so much I can do to prepare for this show. I mean, I'm also in this run. The same is also true of The Family Fang. Don't know what it is. Haven't seen it. It might be wonderful. She plays Annie Fang. Okay. Um... Hang on now, you skipped 2015's Queen of the Desert. Oh, Queen of the Desert. My bad.

Have I seen Queen of the... I don't know if I've seen any of these movies. Hold on. Queen of the Desert? Queen of the Desert is a Werner Herzog film. Oh, I haven't seen this. I haven't seen it either. It's about Gertrude Bell. It's a bio doc. Okay. The Family Fang...

Something is happening in movies here where... The Family Fang is directed by doc. Okay. The Family Fang. Something is happening in movies here where they're- The Family Fang is directed by Jason Bateman. And it's- Wow, wild. Hold on, but Wikipedia is not giving me a log light. Come on. The Family Fang enters a bank,

Baxter robs a teller for lollipops, shoots and Caleb rushes. I don't even know what this sentence means. Okay. So I don't know what's going on with- Family Fang, a brother and sister returned to their family home in search of their world famous parents who have disappeared.

That was good, but I have never seen it still. I mean, this is remarkable. It's written by David Lindsay Abare, who wrote Rabbit Hole. Um, that's the... I have never heard of this movie. Pullets of Presbyter. Yeah. Okay. Um, I've never heard of this movie. Nor have I. It's not going in. If there are huge family fang heads out there,

let us know. We apologize. Bateman, congrats on Carry On, bro. Good job. Did you see Carry On? You know what Carry On is? I thought you were saying like... I thought you were saying a different thing. Not keep calm and carry on. I was saying Carry On, the film. Um, I do... No, I thought you were saying it like with an eye and I was like, I don't know what's happening here.

Like carrying? Like dead? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like what vultures eat? Um, I have not yet seen it. I'm aware. Um, obviously I listened to, I'm aware. Okay. Obviously I listened to the Chris Ryan segment. Yep. I look forward to it.

It's fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's one of the most watched films in Netflix history. Sure, yeah. 2015 Secret in Their Eyes. This is a film you were referring to earlier. A star-studded affair. I think the only time that Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts

are featured in a film together, To Tell Ez Four. This is a film based on a very successful 2009 Argentine film that is one of the great international movies the last 25 years. This version stinks. Yeah and this was also like a real... it's like it didn't happen. Yeah Billy Ray is a writer and director. Writer and director I like. Movie doesn't work that well. Okay. 2016, this is the movie I was referring to that I was like, what is this? Who is alive when this happened?

Sure, yeah. Movie is called Genius. Do you know this movie? No. Okay. Let me tell you a bit about this movie. I'm gonna pull it up for you right now. I'm reading it. So it's directed by Michael Grandage, who's best known for his stage direction.

He also directed My Policeman, the Harry Styles movie that came out a couple of years ago. That's different than... What was the... Hey, Mr. Policeman, I gave you all the clues. That was The Snowman. Right, but it was, hey, Mr. Police, I gave you all the clues? I think that's right, yeah.

That movie was just announced it'll be released on 4K. Birth not available on 4K. The Snowman starring Michael Fassbender will be. Okay. This is a movie about Thomas Wolfe in New York City trying to get his novel, Oh Lost, published. And he goes to Maxwell Perkins, the editor, and he tries to get this book edited down from like 5,000 pages to something that the world would actually want.

Okay, so Jude Law is Thomas Wolfe and Colin Firth is Maxwell Perkins. Furthermore, Nicole Kidman is Aileen Bernstein. Oh my God. Dominic West is Ernest Hemingway. Guy Pearce is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Laura Linney plays Colin Firth's character's wife Louise Perkins. And Vanessa Kirby is Zelda Fitzgerald. Oh! Vanessa Kirby is Zelda Fitzgerald? Inspired casting. Wow.

Not a living soul has seen this film. Here's one thing I would... What is this? Listen, I don't know what this is, but okay. Dominic West, English. Guy Pearce, Australian. Vanessa Kirby, English. I was telling, I said the same thing to Chris when I was telling you about this movie yesterday.

This is, this reminds me, are you watching The Agency? I'm not actually, but I hope to. We're only a few episodes in because a lot of catching up to do, but Dominic West is playing like basically the head of the CIA. Cool. And I just- George Tennant?

Listen, I, sometimes we do know these actors' nationalities, and sometimes we do need Americans to play Americans, you know, when it's Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I watched a little bit of this, and Jude Law doing like, I'm just here in the big town, ready to write my book, as Thomas Wolfe, it really doesn't work that well.

This movie's written by John Logan, who wrote Gladiator and Skyfall, and many, many good movies. Amazing that this even happened. 2016 Lion Academy Award nominated for this movie that I don't think is that great. Stars Dev Patel. I would say it's red.

I don't feel any need to put it in. 2017 Had to Talk to Girls at Parties, very small part in this A24 movie. I think, is it L. Fanning is the star of this movie? Definitely not going in red. The Killing of a Sacred Deer. This movie and Baby Girl have something in common about how Nicole Kidman's characters like to have sex.

Yeah. That's kind of weird that that's come up again. I love The Killing of a Sacred Deer, one of my favorite Yorgos Slantamos movies. I don't know that this needs to go in though. It's a pretty bold performance. Killing of a Sacred Deer, one of my favorite Yorgos Slantamos movies. I don't know that this needs to go in though. It's a pretty bold performance. Like to be fair, how she does or doesn't like to have sex

is a recurring theme in movies. In her movies or in all movies? In her movies. How Nicole Kidman likes to have sex is a recurring theme in all movies. Got it. Killing of a Sacred Deer, in or out? Yellow.

The Beguiled, Sofia Coppola. We don't need to do it. You don't even want to yellow it just to pay homage? It's not my favorite Sofia Coppola film. I think it's a pretty interesting movie. I'm not sure that Nicole, it's like Nicole Kidman's best work or anything like that. Yeah. I mean, Keegan gets all the fun.

Very good Kirsten Dunst performance, yeah. I'm not friends with Kirsten Dunst yet, in case anyone's wondering. Another situation where she made two movies in the same year with the same actor, just like she had the Invasion and the Golden Compass with Daniel Craig. She has Colin Farrell and the Killing of a Sacred Deer in the Beguile. That's interesting. I wonder if that's something she does on purpose. She was also in The Upside, which is a remake of a French film that starred Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart,

and was a huge box office success, and I've never heard a person talk about it. I'll tell you what, I saw it in a movie theater and I kind of liked it. Oh, this was a... It came out like early January. I remember this and everyone was like, oh, we all saw the upside except for movie people. Yeah, it was not a movie people movie.

But it was pretty enjoyable. She has a kind of a nothing part in it. 2018's Destroyer. I love this movie. Me too. I love this movie. Me too. Were you on the show when this came out? Because Karan Kusama came on and we talked about it, but I don't think you were on yet.

No, I think that I was doing award stuff. Okay. Because I went to see it. Oh, you're right. It was in the fall. Yeah, and because it was at least part of the awards conversation. Did we talk about it? I think we talked about it. How much we liked it. This is really good.

Yeah, this is a really good movie. And also really cool that Nicole Kidman did it. And this is around the time that she very publicly is like, I am gonna start working with more female directors. I'm gonna make that part of my career strategy to try to promote the work and gets this movie made and seen and talked about in awards season.

Yes, yes. It's very good. I'm not, I would yellow it just out of personal affection. I'm not sure if it goes into like a hall for Kidman, but it's meaningful for the reason that you just described. 2018's Boy Erased, this is Joel Edgerton's movie about a couple and their son who is struggling with his queer identity, I guess, or his parents are struggling with his queer identity. His parents are, and they sent him to conversion therapy.

Yeah. It's upsetting, but I don't think... Sad movie, but not a great movie. 2018's Aquaman. If you'd like. No, I think it's red. Okay, so in this instance... On our Queen Atlanta.

Queen Atlanta likes to have sex with humans. Yeah. So... It's the same sex scene as the motel scene in Baby Girl. Queen Atlanta likes to have sex with humans. Yeah. So- It's the same sex scene as the motel scene in Baby Girl. I thought you were gonna say the shape of water. Is it like a one-time thing? Not sure.

Okay. Not sure. Well, it's- Kind of a you up situation. So Patrick Wilson is the brother? Yeah, or- What's his parentage? I can't remember. Okay. Some other fishermen? Yeah, or? What's his parentage? I don't, I can't remember.

Okay. With some other fisherman? I don't know. Listen, I do the work. Why can't you do the work? She's whoring on the shoreline of wherever he lives. Okay. Is that a Pacific coast situation or Atlantic coast?

I can't remember. Is it Maine? I mean. Where's Aquaman from? Like. More of a Red Sox guy? If it's not. More of a San Francisco Giants fan?

If it's not Atlantic based, then we've named Atlantis inappropriately. Should we do an Aquaman re-watch? Yeah. Okay. Aquaman's red. The Goldfinch is also red. It is. This was such a disappointment. What a shame. 2019's bomb show. That Stranger Kids thing is in it? No.

The what thing? The Goldfinch. The Stranger Kids thing? What's that show called? Stranger Things. Stranger Things Kids, yeah. That's Stranger Kids. That would be a tough name for that show. The nouns are still on their way back.

Yeah. You know? It takes time. 2019's Bombshell. No. She has a small part in this movie. She's pretty good in it, but I don't think it's in the whole game.

2020's The Prom was atrocious. Who was she in The Prom? I don't know, but her character's name is Angie Dickinson. That is funny. I don't think she's playing the Angie Dickinson. 2021, Being with the Ricardos. She was good. One of your favorite films of that year.

Oscar nominated for this very bad movie. For the movie that to me that like broke the curse on the Sorkin thing for me. Where I was like, oh, it's curtains for this dude. And I like a lot of his scripts, a great deal. Isn't that the most recent Swampin' movie? Because this is after... Or was Trial of Chicago 7, 2020?

And then Being the Ricardos was 2021? Yes, that sounds right. Yeah, and I mean, Trial of Chicago 7 had some stuff I liked. Being the Ricardos, I found playful. She was good in it. Fine. She's fine. Okay. At least she's fine. Okay. At least she's being funny and kind of, all right, whatever.

I don't need to do it. I don't need to defend it. It doesn't need to go in. It's like a bad biopic. She didn't get Oscar nominated, but it felt like a kind of a weird nomination. It's like you don't nominate her for, she like just destroys her. Right. But the FBI called, you know, J. Edgar Hoover called and said that she's not on the list.

And Haberberg got to announce that to everyone. Huge moment. So just like Deus ex Hoover, great stuff. Absolutely, it was a great movie about how she's not a communist. So that's awesome. Okay, 2022 is The Northman. I don't know if this is going in,

but she's amazing for like eight minutes in this movie. Okay. She has a turn. You didn't see this. No, I didn't. Ugh. Goddamn. Really good. Uh... I'm open to it. It's not really a very big part.

Okay. But she has a sequence with Alexander Skarsgård that is excellent. Um... Do they have sex? Obviously people... not exactly. Oh, okay. Well, now I've been, now I gotta call that up.

Well, it's more complicated than you think. Oh, well, is she his mother? Maybe you should watch the film. Eggers is back in the news. Nosferatu is a huge hit. I'm gonna go see it. Every man in my life has been like, actually Amanda, I think you would like Nosferatu.

So, sometimes I listen to the man in my life. You might enjoy it. I'll say, yeah, well, Yellow Northman, I don't think it's like Nosferatu. So, sometimes I listen to the men in my life. You might enjoy it. I'll say, yeah, well, Yellow Northmen, I don't think it's gonna make the cut. 2023 Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, not going in. Queen Atmahna. I was trying to think of more inappropriate questions to ask you, but we've covered it. 2024, your favorite film of the year, Family Affair.

I felt that she and Zac Efron were quite charming. A reunion of the paperboy duo. Yes. Does she pee on him in that movie as well? I just... You didn't watch, you watched this. I watched like the first hour and 10 minutes, and I was like, I don't, that's life is too short.

I liked her wardrobe a lot. I mean, I had a lot of questions about, so in both this and the TV series, A Perfect Couple, also on Netflix this year, she plays a writer of some renown. This one, she seems to be more of like a high literary sensation. She like, you know, freelances for Vogue as like the,

as the literary writer, as opposed to like a Colleen Hoover type person. In A Perfect Couple, she seems to be a little more mass market. She's basically being Ellen Hildebrand. She affords just like an incredible amount of- Her house is sick. Her house is amazing.

She'd be or say? And also, yeah, I think so. And also just like a very classic like mishmash of like LA real estate exteriors. And like a beamer in the driveway. Yeah, and it's like, you know, but it's like right on the ocean, which doesn't exist. Beautiful house, great clothes.

I didn't have a bad time watching this. It doesn't need to go in. Okay. It's the Instagram is evil of streaming movies, in my opinion. You can have this, trust me, unless you want to pay a mortgage It doesn't need to go in. Okay. It's the Instagram is evil of streaming movies, in my opinion. You can have this, trust me, unless you want to pay a mortgage and have a family and try to manage your career while managing the rest of this world.

Oh, so you think it sets unrealistic expectations. I know. I do. I mean, yeah. You can have it all, including Zac Efron's cock. She does say that Vogue pays her $4 a word. She does say that. Yeah. What does that get you in this economy?

One carton of eggs. It's true, it's true. Definitely not that house or any of those close. Okay, Baby Girl. I don't think so, but for- But it's early, you know? It's early. So it like might be down the road.

We very rarely put the new one in. Yeah. Well, we got to go through all the other stuff. Okay. So Baby Girl Will Yellow. Spellbound is a voice performance for a Netflix film this year. Tell me more. Haven't seen it? Oh, okay. You're really falling down on your responsibilities. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. I had... Listen, I did a lot of work on A Family Affair

and I can speak to the TV shows shortly. Appreciate that. She's worked on a lot of TV. I don't ultimately think we should include any TV in here, but there would be one exception. Big little lies. Yes. So just for context, through the 80s, she appeared in a number of TV shows,

a lot of episodic television. She also was a regular on a handful of shows. She also appeared in a very well-known mini series called Vietnam. Nicole Kidman was born during Vietnam. Her parents lived in Hawaii when she was born. Her father was a professor of some regard. She has dual citizenship in our country and in Australia.

Her family eventually went back to Australia. I think Vietnam was a meaningful conflict and something that her parents were focused on when she was younger. I haven't seen this series, but apparently it's very good, this Vietnam miniseries that came out in 1987. I want to check that out. She's also on a show called Bangkok Hilton.

She had like six or seven appearances. And then nothing until 2012. She's in the HBO movie Hemingway and Gellhorn, opposite Clive Owen. Yeah. Another film that she appears in about Ernest Hemingway. And another time that she appears in about Ernest Hemingway. And another time that a British person is playing Ernest Hemingway.

Uh, I think it's also directed by Philip Noyce, who was the director of Dead Calm, not going in. Big Little Lies comes in 2017. You could make a real case for this. So this kicks off a stretch here where we get in a seven-year period on television in sort of fancy streaming prestige TV. Big two seasons of Big Little Lies, top of the Lake China Girl, the second season of Top of the Lake, the undoing on HBO. Pretty good.

Horrible ending, but pretty good. I mean, it was fun. Very watchable. It was like what it was. Very watchable. It was Nicole and Hugh Grant, so it was good for you. Nine Perfect Strangers. I actually never saw this, even though I read the book. Did not like it. One episode of Roar on Apple TV+.

Lioness. Which we'd be remiss to omit. Chris keeps calling it Lioness. Shouldn't it be Lioness? Like, where's the emphasis on the wrong saliva there? Um, I'm not a part of the Lioness hive, even though my husband has been converted. Went straight from land man into lioness.

Did you know Nicole Kidman is not the titular lioness? That's Zoe Saldana, right? Yes. Uh, yeah. I, she's like, isn't she? Who is the director of the CIA in lioness? Do you know? No.

Morgan Freeman? No. I believe it's Michael Kelly and Morgan Morgan Freeman is the Secretary of Defense. Sick. I have not seen this show. I mean, that's a... It's a whole world. Lulu Wang's TV show, Ex-Pats, which I have not seen, also came out last year. She stars in that.

I wanted to read the book and then watch it, but... You had a baby instead. Well, it's also about bad things happen to a kid. So, I was just like, I can't do it. Also a recurring theme in her work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then 2024, you mentioned The Perfect Couple, which is the series that she was on last year.

Which is tremendous trash. I had a fantastic time. It's really, really poor decisions made in the casting of every single man on that show, except for Leif Schreiber, who is having the time of his life. And I don't know if you guys heard about the flash mob credit sequence or the flash mob title sequence. I have, yeah.

Which they all hated except for Leif Schreiber, who was like, no, no, no, I really want to do this. So that's pretty legendary. Doesn't need to go in. Her accent is all over the damn place. OK. She just like starts being British about three quarters of the way in.

That is something that occasionally happens in her work. She'll go for an accent pretty big and then it'll waver at times. Yeah. Let me make the case for Big Little Lies. Good. It's a sensation in terms of television, of movie stars doing television. I mean like that and it's really Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon doing it is what turns the tide. And I mean, that's like, I guess, bad for us, but it's fine for their bank accounts.

I think it's pinging back right now, so I'm not so worried about it. And it's also, it starts the whole Reese Witherspoon thing, the book adaptation thing. It was part of the whole produced by women working with, it is like really essential in recent industry as well as in her career.

And also corresponds with sort of a resurgence in her doing things we actually care about work-wise. I'll tell you what, I'm on board. Okay. We can include it for the first time ever, a television show in a hall of fame on a movie podcast. Here's the other case I was going to make. Okay.

The AMC promo. I get it, but no. Like I get it, but no, because then we're getting into a place where ad campaigns are eligible at all times. And that's a slippery slope. And I don't want it. Big little lies is a work of art. AMC is not.

So the hall of Fame is for art. What was the Kevin Costner thing that I was so mad about? When he was promoting his coffee. Oh, right. Okay. Green Mountain Coffee. No, I mean, I was mad about that too. But so when you wouldn't put Molly's game in the Kevin Costner Hall of Fame,

I was angry because I really thought we'd like that. You? On this show? I thought that we had something together. Yeah. Right now I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed because like I, I, I have the galaxy brain. You know, I can see all of it and I, you're usually riding with me and you're not. I'll tell you what, you can have one or the other. You can have big little lies or you can have the AMC ad and if you choose the AMC ad, I will support you. Oh, my God. That's not fair.

That's hard. Oh, Bob, where are you on this? On the split between whether we should... To be clear, are we greening one of these or are we just... Yeah, yeah, yeah. One is getting green. It's gotta be Big Little Lies. I know it has to be Big Little Lies. This woman's made 380 films and we're cutting one of them out.

It's Big Little Lies. Do you want to have an opinion, Bob? Oh, I think it's definitely Big Little Lies. It's actually a performance. I mean, the ad is one thing. It's not really even a commercial though. It's almost like for the 100-year anniversary of AMC Theaters, right, when it came out.

But... I mean, it is for a corporation that I think has run very poorly. These are all for corporations that have run poorly, just for record. That's a great point. In dying Hollywood today. Okay, so Big Little Lies is great. I think that's a good one. I like the case that you made for it.

We all watched it. It was very entertaining. Their first season was good. Also, Alexander Skarsgård. I think that once again, that's why she, why they worked together in the Northmen. Where is he? I miss him. Probably being great somewhere. He's wonderful. Pretty consistently great in everything he does. Yeah.

He must have a big movie coming out this year. I hope so. Because he didn't have one this past year. Okay, so we'll go through our greens very quickly here. The greens are To Die For, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge, The Others, Birth, Margo at the Wedding, and Big Little Lies. That gives us two, four, six, seven greens.

We have several yellows. I'll read them to you right now. Dead Calm, Days of Thunder, Malice, Practical Magic, The Hours, Dogville, Rabbit Hole, The Paperboy, Paddington, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Destroyer, The Northman, and Baby Girl. I'll just say- How many do we have? Sorry, I was thinking about Alexander Scar Scar. Oh my God.

Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirteen yellows. Which might be the world record for yellows. One, two, three, four, seven. We've got twenty films, or nineteen films in one television series. I'll just, let me just say this. I think that Practical Magic and Dead Calm basically need to go in. I think we were being delicate by not putting them in. Okay. But I think there are movies that people love that she is acclaimed for

that are two totally different types of parts. I think also you get this sick period from 1998 through 2004 where she's just awesome in movies. She's just great. That's fine except and I practical magic people I see you. You need to cut it out. I love you. Well why can't we do... So you're gonna have the practical magic people, I see you, I love you. Well, why can't we do... So you're going to have the practical magic people coming for you, the Moulin Rouge people coming for me in the same episode. Like we put Moulin Rouge in. Yeah, well, of course.

I acknowledge its power. Why can't we do something for us? Why can't this be our list? You just got the little Lysen. I know, but like why can't we do, why can't we do Destroyer? Why can't we do Baby Girl? Like why can't we do... If we put in dead common practical magic, we still have one other... What if I want Destroyer and Baby Girl? We really can't we do Destroyer? Why can't we do Baby Girl? If we put in Dead Come and Practical Magic, we still have one other...

What if I want Destroyer and Baby Girl? We really can't have it all. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But like, you're with me. Why don't you do what you want to do right now? You're with me on Destroyer over Practical Magic. I like Destroyer more than Practical Magic, of course. Well, then why don't we just do Practical Magic, Destroyer, and Baby Girl?

What about Dead Come? It's good, but like, do Practical Magic, Destroyer, and Baby Girl? What about Dead Calm? It's good, but like whatever. I would rather watch Dead Calm than Baby Girl again. Well, that is your patriarchy and de-tertlized sex work, okay? So that's on you. I've seen Baby Girl twice, I've probably seen Dead Calm twice. You know?

Listen, it's fine. Sam Neal's just like on a boat for a while. Let me pitch an idea to you. Yeah. Should we hold a listener vote? No, absolutely not. Or a final spot in the Halls of Fame in the future? Where we give them the remaining yellows and they vote.

Do we have to? Well, listen, we all know that you're a demagogue dictator. I just got this power, okay? No, listen. It's, you know, women have been waiting this whole time and now we can have it all. So now I get to... What if only women can vote? You know, we'll do like a little reverse. So, but okay, so then what would be the last spot? If you wanted to do, I don't think Baby Girl should go in.

I really like Baby Girl, but I really like a lot of these movies that aren't going in. Paperboy's not going in, Killing of a Sacred Deer, that's a movie I really like. Rabbit Hole, that's a movie I really like. lot of these movies that aren't going in. Paperboy's not going in, Killing of a Sacred Deer, that's a movie I really like. Rabbit Hole, that's a movie I really like. Dogville. Okay. You know?

I think if you were building a Hall of Fame as an objective member of cultural restitution, the hours would go in. I don't want to put it in. I'm not making you put it in. Okay, okay, okay. You know? I'm not... We're working together.

This is a team effort. I know, and you left me hanging on AMC, and you're not... Teamwork would be destroyed. We both really like that movie. You're a corporate stooge. I'm not allowing that. I can't allow you to sell yourself in that way. Especially not with the steam as a baby girl. I just understand the zeitgeist, you know?

I've got my finger on the pulse. Yeah, for a three-year-old meme. I do think we should really bring back old memes. There was another meme that we were just discussing from like 2017 that was really good. You're moming a little bit here, just so you know. Sorry. We should bring back old memes.

I have respect for history. Okay. It's my Roman Empire. You got three, you can make three picks right now. Okay. I won't even, I'll let you do whatever you want. Uh. Honestly, you could. Well, that's not fun.

You're in charge. Okay. That, you know, all right. You're the boss. You're the baby girl. So, dead calm, practical magic, and baby girl. Sold. Sold. Okay.

Got that, Bobby? I do. So, so all that and Destroyer is not even going in. Yeah, because- What do you think if we put these other 10 things up for the public and they can have the 11th spot? No. Why are you fighting?

Why are you trying to involve- this is our time. We just had it. Okay. All right, sure. They can vote for the 11th spot. Like, no matter what happens, we had our time. We just had it. Okay, all right, sure, they can vote for the 11th spot. No matter what happens, we had our time. But Praskomantic is in. We had our say, yeah.

Okay. So wait, you wanna give the listeners the participation trophy spot? Yeah. It wouldn't be that, it would be an alternative opinion. I'm, what I'm doing is I'm opening my ears to the world. I think- They can make their own lists.

Well, they certainly will, and they do. Yeah, and that's cool I mean, I support them on their own time, you know, you do not believe in democracy You believe that this fascist direction that world politics has taken is healthy and just This is we carved out our space is our table. It's true. This is our table Okay, great. Let's go to my conversation now with Halina Reign. So happy to be back with Halina Reign. You have a new film, Baby Girl. Thanks for being here.

Very exciting to be here. Now we're live. We're in person. Last time we were distant. Yes, we were on Zoom. We're very much in the same space, which is exciting. This is a movie about intimacy. So maybe it's better that we are a little bit closer.

Take me back to the moment after Bodies, Bodies, Bodies came out. I think I might have asked you what you were doing next. If you knew what you were doing. I don't remember, honestly, I didn't go back and listen to it. People should go back and listen to it, or at least I should. No, so yeah, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies came out and I think it was even before that when I was editing still that I was of course kind of like, okay, what's next? And I was considering different things that were sent to me. But my sisters who kind of are my coaches, if you will, or the good witches

over in the Netherlands who helped me to sort of navigate all the things that are new to me, always said, you should write something yourself. And I wrote Instinct together with another woman. I wrote Red Light, a TV show on sex work that I did in the Netherlands with a team of other people. So I never wrote anything alone. And Bodies, of course, was not my original script. And then Sarah de Lep and I rewrote it together, but very different

than writing something by yourself. Yeah. Um, but A24 as they are, are very supportive and they were like, oh, you should write in English because they found me, uh, working on Bodies proved to them that I could do it and that I had a fast pen and they thought I was funny in my writing. And then I always just had this idea to create something about the complicated relationship that I have with myself, the question, can you love

yourself completely or, you know, not just the parts of yourself that you like to show to the outside world, but also the things that you are embarrassed about. And that's kind of deeper question and led me to think, oh, maybe I can make a sexual thriller, but maybe mine is more sexual comedy, I think. If we look at it closely. I want to ask you about that. Yeah, yeah. And so I thought maybe I can do that and make a fun sort of big seductive movie with that hidden message of that question of self-love.

So that was kind of like my starting point. When I saw you introduce the movie, it was at CAA, and you seemed very nervous. You seemed very like open, but you were like, this is extremely personal. Yes. And obviously, I assume everything that you work on is extremely personal. You wouldn't do it if it wasn't.

Yeah. But why specifically was this so personal? I think like I'm happy that you say that, that like on one hand, you could give me the phone book right now and I could perform that for you in a very personal way, but I do think that this, why this scares me so much. And even because, you know, we're still doing screenings and the premiere is coming up and I still am nervous. It's because it's so, the topic is of course, uh, shame in a way, because I

wanted to create, you know, something about my hidden, the hidden parts of my personality and my hidden thoughts and feelings. And so it's all on the screen and that is just scary to sort of share with others. And even though everybody keeps saying Nicole Kidman, who stars in my film is so courageous and the movie is so courageous and it is, but that makes it also still, it's not like we're like, oh yeah, of course we're doing this. Like, ha ha ha, we're doing it and thinking, oh my God, what have we done? And is this really something I want to share with other people or should I just have like

kept quiet about it? Then should you just not talk about these things? Because there is in me a warrior that's like, we need to talk about the orgasm gap. And then there's in me and a woman who goes, oh need to talk about the orgasm gap. And then there's in me a woman who goes, oh, please, please stop. You know, just like... I feel like that exists inside the Nicole character. The sort of like this bifurcated shame, but desire to be clearly expressing yourself.

But also, you know, it is very, very funny. And it's not clear necessarily how early on, can I laugh at this? Am I allowed to laugh at this? Especially like, can a man laugh at this movie? It is very, very funny and it's not clear necessarily how early on, can I laugh at this? Am I allowed to laugh at this? Especially like, can a man laugh at this movie? Is that okay? Yeah. Do we feel safe doing that? So when you were writing, did you have a clear sense that you wanted it to be,

not joke-laden, but that like bursting the bubble of anxiety that comes with topics like this while also making a very propulsive thriller? Maybe talk about like blending those two things. Yes, definitely. I really set out after Bodies, I discovered humor and I was like, this is amazing. And of course as an actress, I've always really loved humor as a weapon in all the mainly, I did mainly stage work, but also in my movies, I love being a comedic actress. So when I started to write this, especially because I think that human nature is incredibly tragic, but

also incredibly funny to me. Like human behavior is just so we constantly contradict ourselves and we're constantly conflicted. And so I thought I just want to add that layer, that tone, that with bodies of course we also really had to search for that. It's very complicated to make a movie that has tension, you know, where you actually are a little bit afraid, but at the same time you're laughing. That's the same with sexuality, because sexuality, we don't necessarily think

about humor because it's kind of like humor is always a relief, and sexuality builds up to something. And so it's hard to do, but for me, I, for me, everybody can, can start laughing. Not, not of course, the very beginning, because that's pretty intense, but once they have that kind of like cookie scene, there's a scene in the beginning of the movie where she asks him how he got a dog to calm down on the streets. And he just says, I gave it a cookie,

and then he offers her one. And I think that to me is kind of the beginning of the game, is where they sort of set the rules of the sexual game, if you will, and then the humor also starts for me. It must be so exciting in my screening that's when everyone started laughing was the do you want one scene with the cookie. It must be exciting to watch to recognize that people have maybe have the same sensibility that you do too or like what is that like when you're writing something and you're like I hope that this is going to connect

the way that I see it or the way that I understand this idea. Yeah no that's it's most of all a relief. Because of course we all think, or at least I think constantly, that I'm an alien and that I'm an imposter and that I don't belong on this planet. And that's, and then of course humor is such a specific thing. So then to watch a lot of people laugh at a joke that you wrote or make. But I also really have to give credit to the actors because of course,

Harris Dickinson is, is who plays the young lover, uh, Nicole, Nicole Kidman's intern in the movie. Uh, he's an amazing actor and he has really, he's a comedian. So, so he can really do that in a way that is very subtle because the humor in, in baby girl is not like in your face, but it is constantly present. Because I also think that if you want to tell a story with a little bit of irony and you bring awareness to what is sexuality really, and what is a subdomin relationship, because that is something of course that we are exploring in this

movie, I just think that it is very funny if you bring it in a realistic way, not if you kind of paint this glamorous old Hollywood picture of it, because then it's just something that we might aspire to, that we dream of, or an escapism. But I wanted to create something that would feel completely human at all levels. We were talking about Verhoeven before we started, and you have acted for him in a film, and you know, that is a very distinctly Verhoeven idea too. That sort of like the intense tension and action in some cases blended with this absurdist sense of humor that kind of pierces the bubble of the tension really

well. Like did you pick something up while working with him? Like how is that an influence on you? Well I do think that we are very similar. Maybe it's also a little bit of a Dutch thing that you know we're very much earthy people, you know we're very much, um, earthy people, you know, we're very grounded people. And, and, and from that, and a real, almost like a little bit like farmers, you know? Um, and from that comes a lot of humor, I think. The Dutch have a lot of cynical, ironic humor. And, and so maybe that is a little similar. Um, yeah. And I, and I, I just think again, that if you want to go into these really dark areas of yourself

and of humans in general, you also got to seduce the audience a little bit to come with you. And why is humor such a weapon for that, such a Trojan horse, if you will, because it just connects us. Because if we can laugh at something, even in very tragic circumstances, it just feels that you're together. And so that's, and sexuality is such a charged subject for everyone. There are so many things that we still are afraid to talk about or, you know,

and that we're very, feel very alone in. And so there's a lot of humor when you, you, you bring it in a vulnerable human way, I think, and then you sort of feel that the audience, like you say, they, they are maybe a little bit uncomfortable and then, And then they are so relieved and they can laugh. Did you write it with actors in mind? No. I write very much. I just play all the parts.

You know, I did that with bodies too. I sort of like, I write a scene first. I write it out. And then after, so first I have a treatment and all of the technical things where you sort of like, lay the land. You really structure everything everything because like the character Romy, I come from chaos. So I love structure and organization.

And then within that I can be free in my little house where nobody can see me and I can act out all the parts to sort of feel if the rhythm adds up, if it's like music, if it really, and also to see if it's sort of possible even to do what I'm creating on the page. And so I don't write with people in mind. And Nicole came into my life after Instinct, she already contacted me and I worked on something for her company and it was really, really great because it gave me a lot of confidence to write in English.

But then after Bodhisattva I was just so inspired by making a movie in America. And I felt what I really love about America is that I feel when I'm here, that there's no boundaries in how I think about my creativity. Whereas in Europe, I feel always that you kind of weigh down by the beautiful, but very huge history that we have there. That's so interesting. I mean, you would think that the opposite would be true for so many people, because there's this understanding of European film history, that there is something kind of unbound about it, whereas in America, it's very commercial, but you don't feel that. No, I feel, so I understand that, of course, that archetype of how we think of both the

continents and how creativity is there. But no, for me, I think it's a very interesting paradox. I think here, because of course, listen, we could talk for hours about all the things that are wrong in Europe and all the things that are wrong in America, of course, but to keep it positive for me, what I found here is that when I think, for instance, let's say I'm thinking about making a big scale movie in New York, it's super sensual and da da da da. Then in the Netherlands I would think like, but shooting in New York would never be possible.

It's too expensive. So, you know, that's very much the European mentality of be normal. That's funny enough. Like don't think you're all dead. And that's because we have behind us these enormous amounts of history and culture. And, you know, we kind of like look up and we're like, oh my God. And here there's this almost, I don't want to say that in an offensive way, but a childlike mind that I have when I'm here.

And I can just dream big. If I would tell you, now, Hey, I'm starting an ice cream shop in New York. What do you think about it? A lot of American people in my life would say, great, you know, great. And in the Netherlands it was an ice cream shop. Are you insane? Like, so here everybody's very enthusiastic. Yeah.

And I think that I don't know where that comes from, but I feel for me, because my ideas are quite dark and strange. It is amazing when A24 goes, oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Walk further into that dark forest. Is it, I say this with admiration, is it possible that you don't realize that you have a certain kind of personality that invites that welcomingness to the idea in this country?

Because I don't, that's not how I see America at all. No? You don't think that people here are, at least when it comes to entrepreneurship or wanting to build something are very, are like, that's amazing. You should try that. Whereas in Europe, they're like, what? Maybe you're right. I don't know.

I candidly just have not spent enough time in Europe to be able to answer that specifically, but in America, I don't know. I think that there is maybe like a forward facing positivity that underneath the surface is skeptical, but you know what? The fact that that emboldens you to be creative is fascinating to me. Nicole also not American. No, my whole cast is not American.

I did not realize that at all till later. Antonio Banderas is of course not American. Harris is not. Harris is from the UK and Sophie Wild is from Australia. Oh my goodness. So that's kind of strange. I do think the Australians share the same kind of like earthiness that the Dutch have and that humor that very much like self-deprecating elements.

And that is what, look, Americans, and again, we're completely generalized, but we're having fun with it. Americans can be emotional and enthusiastic without any reservation. That is in Europe. That's unthinkable. that's unthinkable. It's unthinkable. You could never say, oh my god, this is such a beautiful moment. You know, you could never say that.

People would literally be like, what are you doing? And so, and there's something in that for me personally, that because I really changed my whole life later in life, you know, I just thought after all these years, I'm going to be a director now and not an actress anymore. That was in my country was really looked upon as what? Like we have this saying is like shoe maker, stay with your profession.

So if you're a shoe maker, you're a shoe repairman and you're never changing. And here I feel like you can reinvent yourself, but of course there's other downsides to that here, right? I mean, there's no safety net. If you don't succeed next week, you live in your car. So in that sense, I find it a super scary place. I can feel that in the movie though. Because in the movie you've written this character to be a very powerful person,

a very forward-facing person who has to perform all the time, but who is in a position of decision-making power and is concerned about perception, about all things. You could say this feels very much like an actress, or it feels very much like a director, or maybe an actress who was a director. How much did you think about putting yourself into it? And also just why a CEO in general for the character? Yeah, well, because I wanted to make a comedy of manners about power and sex and control.

And I wanted to be in conversation with the past. I wanted to be in conversation with all the sexual thrillers that I so loved in the 90s and the early 2000s, but that I also thought were incredibly sexist and not human. And so I was wanted to show, you know, I wanted to purposefully and playfully show like, listen, I'm playing with all these tropes and I'm playing with your expectations as an audience that we're going in a certain direction and then whoop, we're going totally into another direction where every character is ambiguous and there's no villains and angels like there is in Fatal Attraction.

So I really wanted to create my own path in that sense. And yes, I do, I am very much of the school of write what you know, but on the other hand, I'm not a mother, I of the school of right what you know, but on the other end, I'm not a mother, I'm not a CEO of a robotics company, unfortunately, because I would love to be. And you know, so I'm a lot of things I'm not that are taking place in a movie, but yes, I bring my, my own pain, my own jokes, my own experiences and the ones of people around me. A lot of people in the Netherlands when we had a premiere there the other day. And a lot of my friends and family, they recognize pieces and they all feel luckily honored.

They are not angry at me. And when the stories are extreme, I ask for permission, of course. But it's kind of like, yeah, I kind of like use all these things and put them in the story. But the story is very archetypical. It's really a story that we've seen before when it starts about power and submission, but we swap genders, of course, continuously and we swap everything so that you don't know anymore, because the intern Samuel, played by Harris, has just as much power over her in a way because he can cancel her every minute of

the day, but on paper, she, of course, has the power. And why did I want to do that? Because I think still as women, we still are searching for our place in the world. And I thought it would be incredibly interesting to see a woman that has everything. You know, when you look at it, you think, oh my God, she has a beautiful family. She has a beautiful woman. She has a wonderful marriage and then she has a beautiful job, but yet she's unhappy and slowly an animal's waking up in her inside inside her. And she's kind of in a midlife crisis and she cannot keep that animal asleep anymore.

And that's kind of exciting to watch because, yeah. Well, related to that, the choice that you make to have the characters, to have the audience see what the decisions that the character makes to attempt to maintain a certain standard of beauty is, I think one of the things that people are saying is really bold of Nicole's performance, that she is willing to show injections in her face or the way that she treats her body

and tries to stay in shape, you know, as she gets a little bit older in life. Was that always a part of the story? You know, how much of that was conversations with Nicole? Like, how do you develop those? Because it's asking a part of the story? You know, how much of that was conversations with Nicole? Like, how do you develop those? Because it's asking a lot of an actor, a very famous person, to reveal themselves in the way that she does in the movie. So I'm just kind of curious how you kind of broke her that creativity.

I wrote that all before I ever thought of her in the part. And after that, after I worked on her project and I said, sorry, I'm going to isolate myself. I have this idea and I want to completely focus on that. And she was of course incredibly supportive, but she always stayed in touch with me. And then she asked like, what is it? And I said, it's called baby girl. And she immediately got obsessed because apparently her husband has a tattoo of baby girl in his neck.

And he calls her baby girl. And so there were kind of, she was just intrigued by that. And then she read a very early draft and it was already in there exactly like it is in a movie. And why I put that in a movie is because I will speak for myself, but I feel in this time there's this tendency of, to want to be perfect, to think that we can control everything. So we think that if I do enough ice baths or go to the gym enough and, and do

enough therapy, I can get rid of all the blemishes on my soul and on my skin, you know, and I can become this perfect being and then I will be happy. And then everybody will love me, but mostly then I will love myself. And I think, I mean, walking around in LA, it's crazy. But I mean, I think it's a worldwide phenomenon. It's always been in humans, right? I mean, even before Christ, like we have proof of that people always trying to live

longer, trying to look different. And so I just wanted to show that, that struggle and, and that, and, but, but I am very much interested in, of course she does the Botox and I understand that shocking to look at, but she's also doing this EMDR therapy where she thinks, well, if I do enough therapy, I will, I will just, I will be able to get rid of the darkness. And that is of course, a misunderstanding. And I'm also talking to myself here. I think it's way better to look at your darkness and accept your darkness and be in touch with your darkness because then it's manageable. But if you start to suppress it or you think I

can get rid of it, then it can become risky and dangerous. It's really impressive what you kind of forced us to look at, you know, it's almost like a, cause you can't look at yourself in the mirror when you're doing these things. When you go to therapy, you're not looking in the mirror at yourself when you are, you know, doing something to enhance your quote unquote beauty. You don't see it. So you're almost like confronting us with the things that we think are solutions, which are usually not so, this is why I don't do anything. This is why I don't go to therapy.

You look great. I just know that I was not fishing for that. I promise you. Um, no one is watching this and thinking Sean looks great. It's not a single, that's such bullshit, but that is exactly confirms my point. We all have this self hate, you know? But it is, but of course I'm also with my movie. I'm not saying I am above that at all.

Like I agree with you, we have no awareness often that's so interesting about living. Even if you can, if we now have this conversation and it's like, oh, we know it, we look at it and we see it so sharp. And then I walk out of that door and I, you know, I could, if someone would say, hey, you look tired. I could be like, oh, maybe I should get a little Botox. You know, and I don't even think about it. And I'm in the chair and I'm getting it and I feel better after. So we constantly, we just don't bring awareness to certain parts of ourselves. And that's just fascinating to me.

And this movie is, I mean, most and foremost, or how do you say that in English? First, first, not most and foremost, first and foremost. I hope that it's a fun, first, not most and foremost. First and foremost. I hope that it's a fun, sexy, hot fairy tale. But underneath it, I am trying to say this woman, she's, you know, in sort of the second half of her life. She sees death on the horizon, like we all do after like, let's say 50, 45, and 49 by the way, in case anyone wants to date me because I'm single.

But she sees the avalanche coming as she says. And so she is kind of like, what is life about? What am I doing? And on those crisis moments that we always think are so painful and we don't want them, they are opportunities of course to bring an insane amount of awareness to what we're actually doing. But what she then does instead of like talking to her husband and really meditating on like, okay, so where do I want to go?

She doesn't do any of that. No, she falls in love with this young guy. So I want to talk about that. How do you forge a dynamic between Harris and Nicole that makes us believe it? Obviously there's the age gap, which is an important part of the conversation of it. But even just between the two actors, if we don't buy them, the movie doesn't work.

Yeah. No, that's very true. I do think it's casting is a large part of that. And then also writing to... Not to be arrogant. But I do think you need very good writing. And you need to really... What I always say is with anything that you create, whether it's a painting or an essay or whatever you're doing, like it's really good to have it sort of be judged by others, to have it be almost like killed by others so that it gets better and better and you're sharpening it and sharpening it.

And to read it out loud with a friend and send it to your friends and people you trust. So good writing and then casting is everything. And I think with them, you can't like in the Netherlands, I could say, hey, let's do a chemistry reading, but with these kinds of level of stars, of course, you kind of have to cast them and then just trust, you know, if they say yes, then okay, great. Yeah. And then.

Have you ever seen that happen in your career with two people who are meant to be in love in a film and you're just like, oh no, they've got no energy. I mean, I've experienced it myself a lot where, you know, I've done so many theater shows and films in my country and I've experienced, but it's very interesting because sometimes you can feel absolutely no chemistry with your co-star or however you call them. And then the audience will feel it, everything. So it's not always the experience that the actors have that is truthful. And with movies, I mean, of course with the camera, you can trick so much. So it's not always that it has to be totally real, but in this case, it's all,

it's, it's such a complicated casting because you have Nicole Kidman, which is maybe one of the biggest actors on the planet. And then you want a very young man to be able to not only stand his ground as an actor, but also to dominate her in these scenes, you know, and, and while she's challenging him not to dominate her. So that's, you just need to find somebody very special. And after Nicole said she wanted to do the film and then immediately both of us were like, okay, who's going to be Samuel?

And then that week that we really started the process to speak about it, I accidentally just really, I didn't even think about it, went to see the premiere of Triangle of Sadness in New York. And I immediately thought, who is this creature? Who is this? This guy is so strange and very funny, but very weird. Yeah. And then I went home and I immediately watched Beach Rats.

He's amazing in that movie. Amazing. And also I love that movie. It's a great film. I had never seen it. And so it was such a delight. And then I saw all of his other work and I got obsessed and I got really scared because once you know you want something.

And then I really thought we need to have him because he's not only just an insanely talented young man but he has a vulnerability and a very unique masculinity that you don't see often with male actors. I got to get him, you know? And so I remember that I was so nervous, so nervous to had to Zoom with him. And he was a little bit like, I don't know, like he was not at all like, you know, where

he was like, oh yes, I wanted, he was kind of looking at me, asking me questions, which only made me more certain. Was he trying to suss you out or try to figure out what your intentions were? Yeah, because I do think that, of course, people who will see the movie will see, it is risky material. It is a very... There's not a lot of actual sex acts in the movie at all, but the sexuality is dark, you know. I want to ask you about his character in particular, because there's an aspect of him that is incredibly knowable, and then there's a huge part of him that is not.

That is very much like a cipher. And we see these like maybe a glimmer or two of his past or his personal history, but there's no big psychological exploration of him or his feelings. Why frame it that way? Because for me, again, I'm in conversation with everything that I experienced being an actor

and all the beautiful stories I was part of myself in the classical theater, but also all the amazing stories that I experienced being an actress and all the beautiful stories I was part of myself in the classical theater, but also all the amazing stories that I looked at. But in all those stories and on all the characters that I had to play, like Ophelia or something, I always felt that I was a mystery. I always had to be this mystery that a man created and I wanted to reverse that. I love that. So I did that on purpose.

And so for me it is, he might be a fantasy. Maybe he's not even there. But I did want to give him a lot of humanity, of course, because you do have to really enjoy the whole rollercoaster ride that you're going on when you come to see the film. So me and Harris talked a lot about that. And there are scenes, you know, when he asks her, this is not giving anything away, I hope the studio won't kill me know, when he asks her, this is not giving anything away.

I hope the studio won't kill me. But when he asks her to hold him and all those moments are very human and, and he, and he shows his full range in it, but yes, he doesn't really have a backstory. Yeah. No details. Just that, just that there's something a little broken. A little broken and you feel that, yeah. And he, he's looking for love and he's very much exploring

his masculinity. And that is something I really didn't want to, I want to create a very feminist movie in the sense that I want to, you know, the female lead and I want it all to be about female desire and the orgasm gap and all of that. I also really wanted to include masculinity in that discussion and how are men supposed to behave and two men of two very different generations, Antonio Banderas and Harris are both kind of like at loss points in this movie. Like what am I supposed, what is expected of me? What can I do? What can I not do? I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Very relatable bit of male dynamic that you've created honestly. I think a lot of

men are going to get it in a way that you don't often see it portrayed. So hold on on that one. I hope and also for Nicole, that is incredibly important. And for Sophie, that we really felt like the four of them, that everybody in every sense gets a say and it gets space. Like the men and the women in this kind of like exploration of what is sex and power. So there's... It's interesting, because Bodies, Bodies, Bodies sort of gets at this, but not really,

but there's a sense that a younger generation, maybe younger than you and I, has some anxiety, particularly about sex in movies, that the portrayal of the sex act in movies is something we may not need. I don't actually know how much of that is real or not, but it's often discussed. Yeah, very often. And your film, as you said, doesn't feature a ton of portraits of it, but there's one very strong, almost abstracted version of it at the beginning of the film. And it's clearly on the minds of the characters throughout the entire film.

Yeah. So... It's a very sexual film without ever really... There's like snippets of sexual sex, but there's never a lingering on it. It's not about that. Why not portray it that way? Because I totally identify weirdly with that generation. That particular study or whatever it was came out when we were already on shooting.

But I'm very much relate because when I was shooting Bodies there was already also a lot of articles about how that generation might not be interested in the act of sex. Now it's about how they don't want to see it on a screen. But for me, I'm a little bit dissimilar. I'm even, nobody will believe this, but I am a prude. I come from chaos. I come from radical hippies where everything was completely like, there were no boundaries. So for me, it's very scary if it's too much in my face. So the milk scene, for instance, where Harris Dickinson orders a glass of milk

for Romy, who sits at a totally different space in the bar and she drinks the whole thing, and then he walks past her and he says, good girl, for me, that's the most sexual scene. That is so sexual, but nothing happens. They don't touch. They're very far apart. And so I always love when it's a suggestion. And I think for a lot of people, sexuality is a story. It's a mind game.

It's, and that is a turn on. And, and I don't say it's not shocking because I understand to see, you know, a grown woman in a corner of a hotel room stand, you know, or crawling around or eating candy out of someone's hand. I understand that that can be shocking and, and, and sexy, but I don't like just two bodies just moving up. I don't want to see that. So I, in that sense, I totally understand that generation and my movie, apart from being about sexuality and power, is also very much a movie about two generations. Very much.

Like that is maybe even more important to me than anything else. And it's kind of like looking with humor and playfulness, but at my generation and a little bit above me, how we think what we think feminism is, and then these younger people that walk in and are like, excuse me, what are you doing? And I love that. And I love how, uh, the female CEO gets kind of like a lesson in that she should be more

vulnerable and that she should be more open to, you know, and not thinking like this old fashion form of hierarchy. So we're just discussing power throughout all these sub-theme themes. And different generations is definitely a topic. And I have a lot of hope for younger generations to have different attitudes towards sex, identity. They're more fluid. They are more kink positive. They're more body positive. So I'm kind of inspired. Just a couple more things for you. I'm very curious about the big needle drops, which there are not very many, but they're very

impactful. And I feel like I could feel when I was at the screening, everybody was like, ah, this is so the right song for this moment. So maybe you could talk about how you chose a couple of those. Yeah. So again, we stay with the generation topic because so there's Nicole Kippen's world, so to say say and then there's the young people's world and in the music and how we handled the music and so even before I started writing I knew father figure because father figure has become my anthem of my life I lost my father when I was very young so I was kind of frozen in time I was 10 years old and when you're 10 you think your father is

superman and the strongest man in the world so I always had a bit of a daddy complex. So when George Michael released that song, I remember, Oh my God, I just felt so seen by it. Anyway, so there was always a song that would be on my playlist. And then when I started to think about this sexual story and how I had powerful woman falls in love with her male intern who's dominating her sexually, I thought, Oh my God, father figure has all these elements. And if you play that under a scene where this younger man acts fatherly over this

older woman that has all the power that could be so interesting. And then of course, Nicole is as much his daddy, you know, as he's her daddy. And so I called the head of film, Noah Sacco, even before I started writing. And I said, Hey, it's Halina. I need that song, Fatherfinger. I need the rights. And he was like, what are you talking about? And I still didn't really know how that all works in Hollywood and how expensive.

Not cheap. Yeah. So he's like, well, maybe first start to write the movie and then see if we're going to make it. But once I showed it to him and it was, and they said, yeah, we have to, we have to get it. And so we were lucky enough to get the rights. And then the, and in excess song that we're playing at another moment is of course also really a song from her generation.

And then when they go to the rave, there's a huge rave scene, which is kind of like the orgasm of the movie, if you will, the climax. Then that is all his world. And that I had that Rave Composed, or do you call that Compose, created by my friends of Yellow Claw. These are Dutch DJs that are also filmmakers, that are very popular also in America. And so I thought that would be very appropriate.

And we played that song during the night that we were shooting it. And Nicole, who can never go to Rave anymore and who loves raves, just kept dancing. You couldn't drag her off the dance floor in between takes. And it became this thing where these other, these background actors, of course they felt that. And it was an incredible, it was just incredible. I love it. The music works so well.

It's really a great choice. Helena, we gotta let you go. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers. Who has just started? No, we've been going for a long time. Helena, we gotta let you go. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers. It was just started. No, we've been going for a long time. That's how much fun you've been having. I do, I have fun. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers

what's the last great thing that they have seen. Have you been able to watch any movies while you've been promoting? Oh God, let me think. Could be new or old. Oh, yes I know. I am obsessed with The Brutalist. Yes, me as well.

Yes, it's my favorite movie of the year. No disrespect to your film, which I also loved. No, of course. And so I had to go to a screening of it at the New York Film Festival. You know Guy. Yes, Guy is with my best friend, Carise. Yes. So I know him and I know Brady and Mona also who wrote and of course directed it.

But they told me, okay, you know, and I was invited and I had to go, but I really, honestly, if I'm honest with you, I wasn't looking forward to it. I was like, it's so long. There's an intermission. I'm, I have ADHD. How am I going to get through it? And I loved every single second of it. I never thought about the time.

It was just an emotional journey. It was amazing. It looks amazing. It really says things about our time, even though it takes place in the past. It's beautifully elegantly written. It's insanely well acted. I can't be, I'm so proud of both of them and of the writing Mona and him together. They did such an amazing job and a couple, which is so amazing. And they always, they are like a group.

They always create so much joy around them. When I arrived in New York, I was so lonely. And I was on stage with Jude Law, who of course worked with them as well. And he introduced me to them. And he said, you should meet them because they will give you a feeling of warmth. They have a lot of friends. And they were, from that moment on, my life in New York really changed. And then seeing them having created this movie,

I'm like, this is one of the best things I've ever seen. So, yes. It's an amazing recommendation. Congratulations on Baby Girl. Thank you. And thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

["Baby Girl"] Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Later this week, we are sharing our most anticipated movies of 2025. Are you excited? I am. Can we do our in and out lists? Yes, we can. Okay.

Great. Is it only movie focused or is it for everything in your life? No, no, movie focused. Okay, so like what is in on trend and what is out on trend? Or what you want to be in on trend and what you want to be out on trend? Setting my intentions.

Okay, got it. All right, very cool. Thanks, Amanda. We'll see you later this week.