Nicole Kidman revealed intimate details about her upcoming role in “Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan’s next series, “Special Ops: Lioness,” in a Deadline interview published Wednesday.
While the Emmy Awards may have snubbed all of Sheridan’s incredible series for their 2023 nominations, A-listers are lining up to work with him after just a few conversations. Superstars Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford were sold on working with Sheridan for his hit series “1923” before they ever saw a script, Esquire reported back in April. It turns out that Kidman was drawn to the writer under very similar circumstances.
“I’ve never done this,” Kidman told Deadline in an exclusive interview.
“It was espionage and action,” a totally new territory of acting for her. She’d initially signed on to produce the up-coming spy series, “Special Ops: Lioness,” having been convinced by President and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios Chris McCarthy and 101 Studios founder David Glasser.
Both Glasser and McCarthy were pivotal in getting Sheridan his exceptional deal with Paramount+ to create a slew of new shows for the streaming giant. Kidman was already a fan of Sheridan’s work on the film “Hell or High Water,” but all it took was a few conversations to convince her that she needed a role in his next series.
“I was like, ‘Maybe I could play a pivotal role,'” stating that she needed to continue a healthy balance between work and family life with her husband Keith Urban, so a leading role wasn’t really for her.
“But I knew that I wanted to produce it, and then Taylor and I kept talking. We worked on ideas and kept massaging it,” she continued. (RELATED: ‘1923’ Star Brian Geraghty Says Taylor Sheridan ‘Tortured’ Cast During Training For Epic Show)
From those conversations, Kidman helped Sheridan create her role of Kaitlyn Meade, “a senior CIA operative who runs what’s known as the Lioness program that sends female operatives on undercover war on terror missions,” Deadline wrote.
“What’s fascinating about a lot of these women, and also people that work in the military, is their ability to handle stress and compartmentalize what they’re doing, and Kaitlyn is the person that can make decisions under duress with no sleep,” Kidman continued. “She’s a leader … But her emotional capacity is fully relegated to: what is the mission? How do I strategically forge the mission? Can we succeed? She’s 10 steps ahead, always 10 steps.”
Separating the emotion from the work at hand was Kidman’s mental hack for Kaitlyn. And with at least one review in from Deadline on the series, it sounds like it worked.
The first two hours of “Special Ops: Lioness” premiere July 23 on Paramount+, with subsequent episodes airing weekly.