When asked by L’Officiel why she accepted the role of Dr. Chase Meridian in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, Nicole Kidman quite reasonably answered the job offered her a once-in-a-lifetime chance to “kiss Batman.” In her own words, “Everyone’s like, ’Why are you doing that?’ I’m like, ‘Because I get to kiss Batman!’ The thing people don’t understand is, it’s not about the check. A lot of the mainstream big blockbusters that I do are hopefully different.”
Though the interviewer doesn’t press further with Kidman’s relationship to the character (missing an equally once-on-a-lifetime opportunity to discuss the Oscar-winner’s favorite Batgirl or Scarecrow story, god!), the actress additionally revealed she agreed to appear as Queen Atlanna in both Aquaman and its sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, solely because she wanted to work alongside Saw director James Wan. However, “I’d really wanted to work with him in horror,” she noted with disappointment.
Though Kidman’s isn’t traditionally regarded as a “scream queen,” she does have experience in the genre, having starred in the supernatural period piece The Others, Park Chan-wook’s familial thriller Stoker, Stanley Kubrick’s occult Christmas nightmare Eyes Wide Shut, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Greek myth-meets-medical horror movie, Killing of a Sacred Deer. She’s also played a witch more than once, in romantic comedies Bewitched and Practical Magic—the latter of which, a perennial Halloween favorite, is getting a sequel that’ll re-team her with Sandra Bullock soon.
Still, she adds further aspirations in the genre, stating, “I’ve not done classic horror yet. Hardcore horror. I’m putting it out there, because I watch hardcore horror. I’m a fan of Ti West!”
Kidman’s suggestion she hasn’t done “hardcore” horror in the vein of Ti West’s recent X trilogy ignores one of her very best performances, though: 1989’s Dead Calm, which begins with a toddler being ejected through a car windshield and ends with Billy Zane’s head lighting up like a jack o’ lantern from a flare gun shot directly into his open mouth. As the film concerns a nautical serial killer who had just murdered the entire crew of a low-budget pornographic film, I’d say it’s absolutely in the same wheelhouse as Pearl and MaXXXine—even if Kidman disagrees. That said, if Kidman is eager for a role in the 11th Saw movie, I think she’s the perfect candidate to test Jigsaw’s gnarliest contraption yet.
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