One of the best scenes ― as in, rewind-immediately-and-watch-it-again-it’s-so-good ― in “Big Little Lies” is Episode 4’s board-room confrontation. Three of our finest actresses stake out territory across a table: Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon on one side, and Laura Dern on the other.
Battling over a controversial local production of “Avenue Q,” Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Witherspoon) and lawyer Celeste Wright (Kidman) argue the town of Monterey wouldn’t want a censorship scandal by giving in to Renata Kline’s (Dern) insistence that the mayor shut down a production of the profane musical.
For Dern, who has remained close friends with Witherspoon since they made 2014’s “Wild” together, it was a delicious scene to perform.
“As beautiful as the experience is working with fellow women and doing that whole scene,” Dern said, “Reese and I have become like family ... so to look across from each other, all I can say is we’re filled with such contempt with every look, and after every take we would be grateful for them to cut so that we could howl out loud. You just can’t believe how fun it is to hate someone you love so much. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m hating you this much!’”
Dern cracked up while recalling the experience during a recent Huffington Post interview for Build Series, so do yourself a favor and watch her describe it in the above video.
Below, Dern talks about the costumes in “Big Little Lies” and her new movie “Wilson,” which opens this weekend.
Before You Go
