By Alicia Rancilio
Nicole Kidman captivated TV viewers in 2020 in "The Undoing," as a woman whose husband was accused of murder. In "Big Little Lies," she was a woman in an abusive marriage. And let's not forget she won an Oscar for playing 20th century writer Virginia Woolf, who battled mental illness, in the 2002 movie "The Hours."
In her new series "Expats," premiering Friday on Amazon Prime Video, Kidman once again emotionally jumps off a cliff. At the center of "Expats" are three women, played by Kidman, Ji-young Yoo and Sarayu Blue, who are each expatriates living in Hong Kong. Their lives are all altered when the young son of Kidman's character, Margaret, goes missing.
Lulu Wang ( "The Farewell" ) directed and was the showrunner of the six-episode series, filmed on location in Hong Kong.
"When Nicole came to me, to make the series, I just felt like she was meeting me at the height of the success of 'The Farewell.' But people who know me from childhood know we were immigrants (from China)," Wang says. "I felt like the series had to represent that aspect of my life, like, yes, I'm an American expat in certain contexts, but in another context, I'm a Chinese immigrant. I wanted to really challenge this idea of a bubble that expats have."
An idea that Wang had was to make the fifth episode some 90 minutes and focus on the domestic workers, expats themselves and tasked with keeping other women's households running.
"Imagine you've just met Nicole Kidman and you're like, 'Hey, I've got this idea for an episode and you're in the background. What do you think about it?'" Wang laughs.
An executive producer, Kidman wasn't just receptive to Wang's thoughts and ideas — they spoke to a true career passion, championing others.
"What I want to do at this point in my life and career is support women like this and support the new visionaries and auteurs that are coming up and try to create paths for them," Kidman says.
"I had never worked with a writer's room before," Wang says. "It's a very sort of solitary task to write usually. Here it was a room of women, helping to develop the story."
One of those writers on the show was Janice Y. K. Lee, whose novel "The Expatriates" inspired the series.
"She was so not precious about the book. And the reason, honestly, I wanted her in the room was so that we couldn't mess things up and so that she would be involved in the process," Wang explains.
"You can't get better research than having the person who experienced it and wrote it in the room. … We would always reference the book and quote it back to her, and she was always quite embarrassed."
In addition to the women in front of and behind the camera, Kidman is happy to share her spotlight with Brian Tee, who plays her husband.
"I'm so happy he's gotten the chance to do this and to act opposite him," she says, adding that, as on-screen spouses, they were bonded by trauma.
"We really helped each other. We were very much each other's best friend and support system. And because we're playing a married couple whose child is missing, we're doing that together," she says.
To go to those emotional places as Margaret "was harrowing at times," admits Kidman, who says she had to lose herself in the moment. "It's an exploration. … It's like, put me in the place, put me in the scene, and let's go off to the objective and whatever comes through will come through."
Alicia Rancilio is an AP writer. AP journalist John Carucci contributed to this story from New York.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More