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Nicole Kidman Almost Pulled Out of Destroyer: ‘I Didn’t Want to Go to That Place’

Photo: Jeff Spicer/Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for BFI

Nicole Kidman only had a three-week break between filming the family drama Boy Erased, where she plays the mother of a son in gay conversion therapy, and the crime thriller Destroyer, where she’s an LAPD detective battling a gang. During a Focus Features reception for Boy Erased last Friday, Kidman told the crowd that she tried to drop out of Karyn Kusama’s new film because both were so emotionally intense. “I did Boy Erased first. And then I tried to pull out of Destroyer. I did! I went, ‘I’m tired, I’m absolutely terrified to go into that role, get me out of it,’ and I was told that I couldn’t get out of it. I do that a lot,” she said with a chuckle. “Anyone in this room that’s about to work with me, know that! Between the prep — I did an enormous amount of prep — there was a three week break [between Boy Erased and Destroyer].”

Kidman explained she likes having a career that keeps her busy, because it’s more similar to the revolving-door-style of working that drama students get. “I fight hard to keep [my career like this] because the idea of getting pigeonholed is terrifying to me,” she said. “But then comes the fear and then comes the idea that you can’t do it, and then comes the struggle to go in. And that’s what I struggled with, with Destroyer: I didn’t want to [do it] because I didn’t want to go to that place.” Understandable — you try making back-to-back emotionally wrought prestige dramas!

Nicole Kidman Almost Pulled Out of Destroyer