Nicole Kidman has joined Top of the Lake for its second season, but the Oscar winner is barely recognizable in her new role. Kidman underwent a physical transformation in order to fully get in character as Julia Edwards, the woman in Sydney, Australia, who adopted the daughter Robin gave up 17 years ago.
"I’m a character actor — I’ve always been a character actor. Doing this role reminds me of when I did Virginia Woolf in The Hours," Kidman told The Courier. "I have prosthetic teeth, which a lot of people haven’t noticed. I’ve [found it] very liberating to be this incognito because no one realizes it is me."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Hair and makeup artist Noriko Watanabe, who has previously collaborated with Kidman, took on the task of transforming her into showrunner Jane Campion's vision of Julia. Watanabe's goal was to convey "a beautiful, strong, feminist mother who is also vulnerable," according to Vulture.
Because Kidman has what Watanabe describes as a "very sweet-shaped nose," she added a prosthetic bulge. "It’s very subtle, but it changes her face to make it look stronger," Watanabe explained.
This isn't the first time Kidman has worn a prosthetic nose for the sake of her craft. When she starred as Virginia Woolf in the 2003 film The Hours, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar, Kidman wore a large prosthetic nose and makeup artists spent approximately three hours a day transforming her into the famed novelist.
Watanabe also ordered gray wigs for Kidman, applied natural-looking freckles to her skin, and drew a gap between the actress' two front teeth.