Nicole Kidman named Martin Scorsese as one of her dream directors to work with — but he’d have to do “a film with women” first.
“I’ve always said I want to work with Scorsese, if he does a film with women,” Kidman said during an interview with Vanity Fair, published Wednesday.
“I’d love to work with Kathryn Bigelow,” the actress continued. “I’d love to work with Spike Jones. I’d love to work with PTA [Paul Thomas Anderson]. I’ve always wanted to work with Michael Haneke. And there’s a whole slew of new up-and-coming directors — there’s so many, and I’m always open to the discovery of new people.”
Scorsese has made a mark in cinema for his blockbuster, male-led films, notably featuring his actor go-tos, like Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Leonardo DiCaprio. However, the legendary and longtime director gave space to Lily Gladstone in his most recent feature, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” for which she earned an Oscar nomination and nabbed a Golden Globe win. And Ellen Burstyn was nominated for an Academy award for her role in Scorsese’s 1974 female-led romantic comedy “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
Kidman went on to say that much of her excitement to work with iconic filmmakers stems from her knowledge of their longstanding and impactful careers.
“And I find it really exciting when you go, ‘Here’s someone that’s so experienced and has been working and working, but they’ve now really hit their stride,’” Kidman continued. “I worked with Karyn Kusama on ‘Destroyer,’ and she’s gone on to ‘Yellowjackets’ and so many big things now. She was at a point where she was frustrated and not getting the things made that she wanted and wasn’t having the opportunities.”
Scorsese has previously met some backlash over his tendency to seemingly neglect his female characters. Most recently, the director defended his decision to give Anna Paquin one line in his nearly four-hour film “The Irishman.”
“I insisted on going back and layering in Peggy more to be an observer,” Scorsese said in an interview with IndieWire back in 2019. “Not an observer, but she’s part of the group, part of the story. She knows Frank. She doesn’t have to say a word. When she’s looking at him and he’s sitting eating his cereal, listening to the report [about the death of Joey Gallo] — ‘A lone gunman walked in.’ The look on his face — it’s him, obviously.”
Scorsese added: “Anna Paquin, who’s terrific in the film, she only has one line of dialogue. But that one daughter knows, she knows everything, just with looks — and that’s the one [Frank] wants to be with, that’s the one he wants to love him, but she refuses to speak to him after learning of his crimes.”
