If this Oscar-winning director ‘ever works with women,’ Nicole Kidman is IN, baby

When you’re Nicole Kidman, you probably have your pick of the litter when it comes to which directors you’d like to work with, but the A-lister still has her sights set on one elusive filmmaker. That is… if he chooses to do a movie centered on women. 

Over the course of her acclaimed career, Kidman has worked with the likes of Aaron Sorkin, Yorgos Lanthimos, Baz Luhrmann, Stanley Kubrick, and Stephen Daldry. While that roster might seem starry enough as is, Kidman still wants to tick-off the actor bucket list item that is working with Martin Scorsese, but they’d have to get on the same page about one specific requirement. Speaking of her desire to join forces with the Oscar-winning filmmaker in an interview with Vanity Fair, the Australian actress revealed that “I’ve always said I want to work with Scorsese, if he does a film with women.” 

While she didn’t elaborate on her comment, you needn’t look too deeply at Scorsese’s filmography to know what Kidman is talking about. The director is known for making male-centered films (ahem, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, The Wolf of Wall Street), and has been criticized in the past for the depictions and dearth of female characters in his movies. In Kidman’s view, Scorsese’s films — which feature largely male casts and explore male-dominated spaces — may have put her name further down on the call sheet, but the filmmaker hasn’t totally sworn off focussing on women. 

His 1974 film, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, features Ellen Burstyn in a leading role, for which the actress later received an Oscar nomination. More recently, Lily Gladstone stole the show opposite perpetual Scorsese muse Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon, earning a Golden Globe win. For her part, Margot Robbie’s appearance in The Wolf of Wall Street will likely always be footnoted as her breakout role, in which she expertly portrayed a character that could have easily been reduced to a depthless blonde bombshell. 

Despite this, Scorsese has responded to the criticism around his male-focussed films in the past, admitting back in 1991 that “the films I’m dealing with have often been about men’s worlds, where the women seem to be adjuncts.” The director cited “the women in Goodfellas and Raging Bull” as “very strong,” and said he has to remain “true to the society in which a story operates.” When you’re documenting the corporate underbelly, a mob family, or the world of boxing, Scorsese said, it isn’t “right to overbalance it just for the sake of trying to be politically correct.”

While his track record for exploring women’s stories leaves a little to be desired, at least Scorsese isn’t strangely obsessed with their feet to the point of fetishization, unlike some of his director peers. For what it’s worth, Scorsese’s next project, in which he dons the producer hat for the upcoming dark comedy Die, My Love, features Jennifer Lawrence in a leading role and is helmed by female director Lynne Ramsay. 

Beyond Scorsese, Kidman also revealed the other names on her director wish list, citing everyone from The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow to Her’s Spike Jonze and Phantom Thread’s Paul Thomas Anderson. One name recently ticked off the list was Halina Reijn, who directed the Kidman-starring film Babygirl that’s set for release in December. I’m not a fortune teller, but I sense a Scorsese film in Kidman’s future, in which she’ll probably wear a wig like every other role she plays.