Nicole Kidman Set the Highest of Bars for Working With Women Directors

In 2019, in the heat of the #MeToo movement, Tessa Thompson challenged Hollywood to work with more women filmmakers. Based on a quick IMDb.com search, two of the ten film projects Thompson has worked on since 2019 were directed by women, Rebecca Hall’s Passing, and Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels.

In fairness, I spot-checked a few of the other names who were part of the Twitter/X responses posted in that article, and no one else seems to have done much better. Brie Larson gets credit for working with three women directors if you count Anna Boden, who has a co-director credit on Captain Marvel. Four of the five directors were women on her show Lessons In Chemistry as well.

Jordan Peele has worked with two women directors since 2019. Nia DaCosta on Candyman, and Adamma Edo on Honk For Jesus: Save Your Soul. He was an executive producer on Lovecraft Country, created by Misha Green. Not a director, but maybe we can count that one too, since he tends to do a lot of his own directing.

Kerry Washington has worked with zero women directors. But she did have a role in a show called Unprisoned, created by Misha McMillan. And Paul Feig is credited as a producer on Nicole Riegel’s Holler and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s Someone Great.

Not great, y’all. But better than nothing. I guess.

Two years before Thompson issued that challenge Nicole Kidman challenged herself to work with more women directors. She declared that she would work with a woman director every 18 months and, according to Variety, she has surpassed that goal.

Working with 19 women directors over eight years is no easy feat when it feels like Hollywood lines women up and makes them take turns working. Nicole Kidman has a lot more freedom to choose projects than a lot of other people do. But this is still pretty amazing and speaks to Kidman’s drive as an actor and producer. No one else on that list even has 19 full-length projects in their credits for the past eight years.

In the Time Magazine Women of the Year (there’s more than one?!) feature about Kidman she’s presented as a tireless and fearless creator, not only an artistic creator and partner in film but also a creator of jobs.

Kidman is able to partner with so many female directors in part because she never stops working. “People go, ‘You’re a superwoman,’” Kidman says. “I hate it.” She doesn’t feel super—she gets fatigued like anyone else—but she’s a lifelong people pleaser. She fretted over bringing home perfect grades. If she can’t think of the exact right response to a text, she’ll ignore it for weeks. She’s often compelled to say yes to roles because doing so creates jobs. “People work when Nicole works,” [Jamie Lee] Curtis says. “I’m working because Nicole is working.”

I got tired just reading the paragraph about all of the recent travel scheduled around the projects she’s got in the hopper. She has two movies and three series in production right now, including a sequel to Practical Magic directed by Susanne Bier, and Mimi Cave’s Holland, which premieres on Prime Video on March 27th.

Nicole Kidman is 57 years old and has two teenage daughters, who she raises with Keith Urban. Who knows how much longer she’ll be interested in maintaining this professional pace? We should enjoy it while it lasts and start preparing the Lifetime Achievement Awards for her right now.