TV Presenter Peter Overton interviewed his former next door neighbour Australian actress Nicole Kidman and her Blossom Films partner Per Saari at SXSW Sydney this week.
Sharing her experiences with her devoted mum Janelle sitting in the front row at Sydney’s ICC, the Oscar winning Aussie movie star talked about the power of hard-work, being passionate, kind and forging close relationships with people you work with.
Nicole said above all to ‘never give up’. She also said there’s no secret formula to a great production, but if you can roll with the punches and believe in your idea, it will all come together in the end.
Nicole Kidman and Per Saari in Conversation – Spotlight on Blossom Films
Here are some highlights of what Nicole shared with the audience of 2,000 people today at the ICC in Sydney for the SXSW Sydney:
Nicole Kidman: Never give up. It can take 20 years and you never give up. You keep going and going and going because you never know when it’s gonna hit. And it’s timing. So something that is rejected now, in five years time, may be the perfect time to make it. So any producers that are out there or writers that are sitting on scripts, you go, okay, it’s here. It may have been turned down now, but that doesn’t mean it’s being turned down tomorrow. And you just don’t give up.
And be good to people. Be kind, because what goes around comes around. And so much of this industry is known to be cutthroat and really, really tough. And there can be cruelty. Because they say it’s a business, I don’t treat it as a business, no.
This is us all working together because we all love making films and we love television projects, but you never know when that person who you helped out is gonna come back around and go, hey, yep, I can help you now. And those things, it’s the chain.
And so just be very, very decent in how you leave something as well. If you are going to leave a job, and I always say this to people, how you leave it is so much more important than how you start it. Partly because that’s what will be remembered and people’s true colours show by the end of a long, arduous, hard production. And so how you leave that production is very, very important.
Nicole Kidman speaking about Blossom Films
Nicole Kidman: We’re very aware and grateful for what we can do. We’d love to have a few more employees. But we’re lean, we’re not a big. We sort of have a very futuristic approach to it.
It’s like a small business where we don’t wanna grow fast because we’re bespoke. But it’s lovely teaming up with other entities and producers and being able to do co-productions together. I’ve done that with Taylor Sheridan, I’ve done it with Made Up Stories, I’ve done it with a number of different people. And so I’ve been able to do that as an actor, but I’ve been now able to do it as a producer.
Peter Overton asks Nicole Kidman how you know when to take on a project and whether there is a stress test first. Nicole replied she asks herself if she’d want to have dinner with that person.
(We ask) Do you want to have dinner with this person? That’s the stress test. Because, yeah, I want to work with you, but do we want to sit down and actually have a meal with this person? Because if you do, that’s a great relationship to have. And that probably is the stress test. It’s about being with people. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m not going to be spending time with people I don’t want to spend time with.
