Nicole Kidman on top of the world

Work and family life is on a roll for 'bushy-tailed' Nicole Kidman, writes Michele Manelis.

Nicole Kidman reunites with Jane Campion for season two of the twisty thriller, Top of the Lake: China Girl. The New Zealand director is partly responsible for Kidman's success, having cast her in Portrait of a Lady (1996). More than 20 years later, sitting with them together, it's evident they share a genuine and deep friendship.

Kidman recalls the way in which she was offered the role of Julia. "Jane said to me, 'I have a great role for you. I am not going to let you read it, I am just going to let you say, 'Yes'." She smiles, glancing at Campion, who describes it differently. "Well, Nicole basically invited herself." Kidman gasps, laughing. "I did not invite myself. I said, 'I'll do anything for you,' which I would. I love Jane. I've known her since I was 14."

On set in Sydney, the backdrop for season two (having left New Zealand behind in season one), Kidman is wearing a shapeless kaftan, long grey curly hair, no makeup, and prosthetic teeth. "Jane said to me, 'I want you to be bold with your look'." Evidently, she was serious. "But I have to say, it's very freeing," Kidman says, laughing. "Look at it," she says, holding up the ends of her curls. "This is the thickest grey hair you've ever seen, right? I can walk across the street right now and no one knows it's me."

She seems to relish this look, which is in contrast to the Kidman I meet again a year later in Beverly Hills, decked out in a pink and purple-hued Blumarine mini-dress and sky-high Kirkwood shoes. Her straightened hair is back to its familiar strawberry blonde.

Nicole Kidman participates in the "Top of the Lake: China Girl" panel during the AMC and Sundance TV Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour at the Beverly Hilton. Photo / AP

"It was an amazing experience to be in Top of the Lake, because you want to play different roles and you want to see things from all different perspectives. I consider myself a character actor, and Julia is a feminist lesbian, which is something I've never done. I thought it was just great."

Julia is also an adoptive mother, which Kidman played recently in Lion (although a very different kind of mother). Her daughter in this role, with whom she has a relationship fraught with difficulties, is Campion's daughter, Alice Englert. "I think it's a very real storyline," says Kidman, "and of course it was funny for Jane. I've known Alice since she was born, so it was amazing to be working with her."

Kidman is an adoptive mother in real life, to Isabella, 24, and Connor, 21, from her marriage to Tom Cruise. She is also raising her biological daughters Sunday, 9, and Faith, 6, with Keith Urban. In illustrating a typical night in Nashville with the family, she says, "We have a long couch and we all have fluffy blankies and pillows," she says, smiling. "Sunday rules the remote and at the moment we're watching The Gong Show."

Top of the Lake is not the first time Kidman has left her vanity at the door - notably, in 2003, for The Hours, in which she wore a prosthetic nose to play Virginia Woolf (which earned her a Best Actress Oscar), and more recently in Lion, last year.

Kidman in Campion's Portrait of a Lady.

"I was so fortunate because in Lion, I got to age. I got to be younger and older." She says of her bold character choices: "On the subject of ageing for me, I feel very happy to be here. I think it's that simple for me. Do I want to look good at times? Yeah. Is it an obsession? No. Do I have a man who loves me no matter how I look? Yes. That really helps. But yeah, I like to feel healthy, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, as my mum says."

Having recently turned 50, Kidman is enjoying a particularly creative surge, with four projects to promote: How to Talk to Girls at Parties, The Beguiled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Campion's Top of the Lake. She is also still enjoying the residual success of HBO's Big Little Lies.

"It's a coincidence that everything is coming out at once. People will be sick of me soon," she says.

This is not Kidman's first foray into television. Back in 1989, she starred in the mini-series Bangkok Hilton. "I remember being like, 'Wow. They've given me this amazing series, and all I wanted to do was prepare.' I'm not very different from that young girl. I still jump in with enthusiasm. Back then, I was very much like a colt, like a horse going, 'Okay, show me where to run!' I was so excited and hopeful."

And if she could go back to that young girl and give her any advice, what would she say? She pauses. "I would say, 'just drink it all in a little more'."

Lowdown

Top of the Lake: China Girl on Sky TV's UKTV from August 22