Nicole Kidman Reuniting With Jane Campion
Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 8:00AM 
While we've been pounding the drum for our Emmy hopefuls in the past week, we got some new television casting news to obsess over: Nicole Kidman has signed on for the second season of Top of the Lake.
The previously rumored casting is most exciting for the reuniting of our beloved star with her The Portrait of a Lady director Jane Campion at long last! This coming season will jump forward in time with Elizabeth Moss's detective returning for a brand new case, so it's fair game on what role Kidman will play in the investigation. But a lack of details is the tiniest of complaints when you are reuniting a pair that collaborated on what is some of the most underrated work for them both.
Game of Thrones's Gwendoline Christie is also joining this season, but this won't be Kidman's first actress heavy dive into long form television. Next year, she also has HBO's Big Little Lies coming with both Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. That's hours of Kidman to soak up, not to mention her upcoming films How to Talk to Girls at Parties and Lion (and Genius out now), so rejoice away!
This second season of Lake has been longing gestating since the miniseries first debuted in 2013, winning Moss a Golden Globe and becoming a Netflix staple. If you haven't caught up to it, now's the time for a binge watch before one of our favorites signs up.
Reader Comments (27)
The original is some of the very best television I've ever seen so to say I'm pumped is an understatement. Of course, LION is from Garth Davis who directed four episodes of the original Top of the Lake so he no doubt had a part in this little coup.
If your a real Kidman you should never underappreciate TPOAL.
I loved the first series.
Holly Hunter was perfectly used—not her best work but certainly a memorable, very visual "concept character." I hope Kidman gets a similarly spotlit, set-apart role rather than just providing a cog in the procedural machine. And she'll presumably play an Australian! Remember, in Australia she didn't even play an Australian. We haven't seen her do that in how many decades?
Elisabeth Moss holds up the procedural end very well on her own.
That last picture is awesome and this is great news, mostly because of Campion--really enjoyed the first season. Compared to others here at TFE, I'm not a Kidmaniac, but she is doing some interesting things and taking chances.
Need to rewatch and reread The Portrait of a Lady again (heard yesterday that the producers behind Carol and Happy Valley are teaming up to create a mini-series version of it.)
Is she still in the business? I thought all of her recent movies have been flops. At least not another movie with Colin Firth ... that was maybe 3 to 4 strikeouts in a row? I do not understand why this woman keeps getting film work when clearly no one is interested in her movies, and there are dozens of other actresses who could play the parts better.
Just fyi, that last picture is of Abbie Cornish and Ms. Campion. :)
Yes Pam, 2 announcements that are good news. I love seeing Kidman and Campion in that picture and am enthusiastic to see they will work together again.
Also, it's equally good news that producers of Happy Valley (possibly the best series I've seen this year) & Carol will give us a multi episode version of Portrait of a Lady.
Who will they cast in the lead I wonder?
Andrew - fixed and thanks!
Good luck. She has a lot of bad stuff to put behind her. She doesn't,t have Cruise behind her either.
I've seen the first pic from the set: a new incredible, intriguing and aged look for Nicole!
I got into Top of the Lake much later than everyone else (last year) and I LOVED it. The main reason I even watched it was because of the rumor that Nicole would be joining, so I'm very happy that this has been confirmed.
If she goes straight into The Beguiled after this, Nicole will be working with Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola back to back. That's so exciting and really sends a message that she's actively seeking out these female auteurs. I'd love to see her work with Mia Hansen-Love or Kathryn Bigelow...
Hopefully her Coppola vehicle is a return to form where the industry embraces her that award season she needs a fourth nomination.
OMG THESE PICS!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3641161/Nicole-Kidman-sports-grey-wig-set-crime-drama-Lake-actress-films-Australian-TV-series-1989.html
I love how Campion has a thing for sculpting the characters for her former collaborators (Hunter and now Kidman) out of her own image lol.
I think the industry embraces her a little too much. I used to like her, but I have not seen any good work out of her in years. My only theory is that she has millions from her divorce, and she and Keith happily cross-promote each other's careers. Nicole will work for scale, so she is constantly throwing noodles against the wall. Maybe TV will save her.
What is it with the Kidman trolls here lately? I feel like it's been extra nasty here lately. There's nothing wrong with criticism but calling her lazy because she has all the money she needs from her divorce (as if she hasn't earned any of her fortune herself - sexist much, May Bell?) or saying that she should just pack it up and that there are dozens of actresses who could play her parts better really isn't a good look for a place that usually loves and celebrates their actresses.
No offense intended. She is anything but lazy. Works too much and is not focused. IMHO.
I wasn't insinuating that you thought her work ethic was lazy, but that her choices are lazy as an extension of not *having* to be very thoughtful in her selections because she got a huge settlement from her ex-husband. That still seems to be what you're implying. She can work for scale due to benefits from her divorce (which, yet again, insinuates that she hasn't amassed her own fortune after 30 years in the business). If anything, maybe leave the divorce part out of the equation if you're going to criticize?
And if you think her selections are lazy or un-focused, that's fair game, even though I wouldn't really agree. Lazy to me means playing the same character in a franchise well past its sell by date or only working with the same director over and over and over again. Or only doing things that are *obvious* cash grabs when one doesn't need the cash. That's lazy and un-focused. Nicole's projects may not always work out but she works on very different things constantly, and things that interest her. I wish more did that. Not to mention she's amassed quite a long list of directors that many would kill to work with, and she's continuing to do it in her late 40s. But maybe all of that means she's still too unfocused for you. That's cool.
thank you Jameson
Did anybody see the pics of Kidman in caracther.... looking great and intriguing... looove the aging thing, the hair and the freckles!! It's if like its the Nicole of all times but in caracther and old... great for her! happy for this show!
And by the way, doing John Cameron Mitchell, Jean-Marc Vallée, Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola in a row its pretty amazing. Not to mention she comes to the hands of Herzog, new female director Kim Farrant, Garth Davis, producing and starting in her own film and doing theatre in London, reinventing herself and winning two great awards and nominated for an Olivier. So, who ever says she's lazy, in any kind of form, I say, lazy you are to not see this favoulous resumée in three years.
Kidman is far from lazy.. just chooses anything that comes along and her MOVIES have been disasters... not even making it to theaters at times.
I think youre right rick. Of couse its fair to say she has some choises that went nowhere, but to say she chooses anything that comes along, its totally a personal non objective thing to say.... She choosed wrong, but no way she choosed the first thing that came her way....
And today she signed up for a Yorgos Lanthimos film. SLAY!
I could kiss you Russell! Best Kidman news in a long time.
Ewan.. that is just an expression "anything that comes along" Obviously I have no idea what or where her choices come from... Calm down...
Kidman's current narrative in film:
1. She is working with SO and SO director - hurray, OMG, PASS THE SMELLING SALTS, OSCAR GOLD.
1A. Film with SO and SO director is terrible.
1b. KIDMAN CAN'T PICK SCRIPTS, SHE IS BOX OFFICE POISON, SHE IS A TERRIBLE ACTRESS, NOBODY WANTS TO SEE HER. FLOPPED AGAIN.
1C. Critique of SO and SO director - ZILCH.
Examples of SO and SO directors:
Lurhmann
Herzog
Park Chan W.
Chris Weisz
Grace of Monaco director
Yet somehow, it was Kidman who couldn't pick right. I wonder how many people hurrayed her choices before the movies screened.
Kidman's oft express view of her work - how it turns out really doesn't concern her too much.
Nicole, keep on trucking :).