Nicole Kidman likes to describe herself as a walking high-wire act.
As an actress with upward of 70 film credits to her name over the course of a 30-plus-year career, the image of Kidman teetering on the Hollywood tightrope is hard to reconcile with her enduring celebrity. But this by-the-seat-of-your-pants mentality is exactly what drew the Oscar winner to "The Family Fang," an offbeat portrait of a family united by dysfunction and the damaging effects of an artistic legacy.
"I have no idea what's up ahead, what I’m going to do next, how I'm going to do it or where I'm going to go," Kidman told The Huffington Post in a recent interview. "I try to have that very laissez-faire approach, even though [the work] mines the depths of where I'm at as a mother and as a woman."
In "Fang," Kidman has once again reached these depths with a performance best described by what it's not: affected, treacly or overstated. Adapted from Kevin Wilson's comic novel and directed by Jason Bateman, "The Family Fang" examines how decisions made by parents can reverberate through the identities of children. Used as props in mom and dad's boundary-pushing performance art pieces of the 1970s, Annie (Kidman) and Baxter (Bateman) are still struggling with the aftershock of childhood trauma. Their parents, Caleb (Christopher Walken) and Camille Fang (Maryann Plunkett), privileged artistic vision over child-rearing, gifting Annie and Baxter (called Child A and Child B) with both a deep appreciation for art and an unshakable melancholy.
When the family unit is unexpectedly reassembled, the children are drawn back into their parents' web. But just as soon as the elder Fangs reemerge, they abruptly disappear again under mysterious circumstances, leaving Annie and Baxter to decide whether the two are gone forever or are masterminds of the ultimate performance piece.
For Kidman, the role hits home on many levels. Annie is a 40-something actress searching for her next big role while navigating the difficulties of leading a life in the public eye. Despite the B-level success, she still seeks her parents' approval, filling the void with shoplifting, inappropriate sex and DUIs. Kidman's first scene finds Annie negotiating the necessity of a gratuitous nude scene only to later strut on set topless to "control" the moment. In her character's complexities, Kidman finds a point of resonance, articulating how, as an actress, displacement from one's identity can be essential for inhabiting a role.
"[Annie] doesn’t quite know what she’s meant to be doing or who she is," Kidman said. "That’s the plight of an actress a lot of the time, because you can move so swiftly into other psyches and other places that so much of your own real life has to be devoted to seeking out your sense of self."
Drawing parallels to her experience in the industry, Kidman empathizes with the character's frustrations, but sees differences in her own career trajectory.
"I’m fortunate in the sense that I’m quite uncompromising in terms of what I want to do now at this stage of my life," she said. "I wasn’t in my 20s, but now I have a strong idea of where I want to place my time ... When you’re single and running around the world, there’s a flippancy to it. Once you’re raising children, particularly as a woman, where you place that time is incredibly important."
Kidman, of course, has been married for almost a decade to country singer Keith Urban, with whom she has two young daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret. The actress also adopted two children with ex-husband Tom Cruise. Kidman's and Urban's daughters travel with them almost everywhere they go, she said, and during our phone call Kidman let slip that the 5- and 7-year-olds were there right beside her.
Parenting, however, is not without its challenges, as made clear by the irreparable damage wrought on Kidman's character in "The Family Fang." One line in the film we discuss comes from Walken's character, who matter-of-factly informs his offspring that their childhood woes are anything but extraordinary. "You think we damaged you?" he asks them. "So what! That's what parents do." Kidman says she can, in some small way, empathize with the uncompromising patriarch, explaining that parenting is no perfect science, having now experienced it from both the perspective of a child and a mother.
"I don't think there are very many people in the world that go, 'The way I was parented was perfection.' In that sense, we are all in the same boat," she said. "In the case of my own family ... there were times when I had to rally against my parents to form my own beliefs. They certainly weren’t always completely synchronized and still aren’t at certain times, but that’s healthy."
But ultimately, parents are the ones who shape us. Both Annie and Baxter find a career in the arts, ironically fulfilled by the origin of their misery. Although by the film's end, the pair break free of the fangs embedded so deeply within them, the damage has already been done. Kidman admits too that in her own life the connections she shares with her family are what matters most.
"My own purpose in the sense of women’s rights is very tied to my mother, the feminist, so my identity is still very much linked to her," Kidman said. "I feel very defined now by my relationship with my children and my husband and that’s given me such a strong sense of who I am and what I want."
Before You Go
