"Everything has to be used"- When Nicole Kidman revealed her bold method of using personal life to fuel acting

Nicole Kidman is perhaps one of the rare actors who has not slowed down at all. The actress was recently in Netflix's The Perfect Couple, playing perfectly into the vivid and chaotic world of the mystery drama. She was also the star of the erotic thriller Babygirl, and is even a part of Prime Video's Holland. At 57, Nicole Kidman is as good an actor and as tenacious an artist as she was decades back.

She has a solid philosophy behind her work, too, but she is also one of the actors who stand out in every role. From her groundbreaking performance in Eyes Wide Shut to her Oscar-winning work in The Hours, Kidman seems to have done it all.

One of the reasons she can perform this well is perhaps because of her ability to channel emotions that are often generated in one's personal life. While most actors do this in some form or another, Nicole Kidman is vocal about how she has used it numerous times and how that has helped her roles previously.

In a 2015 interview with Interview Magazine, the actress was asked if her personal life ever bleeds into her work, to which she replied:

"Yeah, but we’re taught to bring everything—the state of being, the environment—and use it. If it’s raining, or the other actor doesn’t know his lines, everything has to be used. So your own emotional state comes into play."

She further elaborated on how this happened extensively while she was working on The Hours, a role that will possibly be considered Nicole Kidman's finest in her glistening career.

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"I was going through an enormous amount of turmoil"- Nicole Kidman on shooting for The Hours

The Hours was a movie that required hard work from Nicole Kidman. The film was based on Michael Cunningham's 1998 novel and had an inherent complexity to it. The characters were also eerily difficult and required a lot of effort from the lead cast, which included other legendary artists like Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

Yet, Nicole Kidman was a standout there, and a part of that could be because of her ability to channel the inner turmoil she had during the time, something that worked well sometimes for the character, as per the actress. In the same interview, Kidman elaborated:

"I certainly remember that happening a lot on, say, The Hours, when I was going through an enormous amount of turmoil. And even though it was appropriate at times for the character [Virginia Woolf], at other times it wasn’t. But I would just bleed it in; it would manifest in different ways. For me, the idea of having a plan, that you’ve got to hit this particular place, shuts down other possibilities."

Referring to Lee Daniels, who was conducting the interview, Kidman added:

"And that’s probably why I work well with you because you’re also like that. You see something, you jump on it. Jane Campion is the same. You are very similar in the sense that everything is so detailed, and everything you see, or sense intuitively, you focus on and pull out."

Over these years, Nicole Kidman has remained prominent as ever, and she does not show any signs of slowing down.

She is soon set to appear in Practical Magic 2, Scarpetta, and Margo's Got Money Troubles. Stay tuned for more updates.