‘Meme me as much as you want’: Nicole Kidman says bring on the ridicule as she names the cause she will ‘do anything’ for

Nicole Kidman memes are the backbone of online film fandom, and she’s welcoming that title.

In an interview with GQ, the Babygirl actress ran through all the moments in her public life so far that have been immortalized in the complex yet essential format of the social media meme. That which is arguably the most famous Nicole Kidman reaction picture, and the first result when you google “Nicole Kidman memes,” is the stuff of legend — both in the sense that it’s now ingrained in the warped, strange, and meta-referential culture of our time, and in the sense that the narrative surrounding it is completely false.

We’re talking about the photograph of her walking, arms stretched out and head tipped up, gloriously taking in the daylight, which has long been described as the moment she exited a lawyer’s office after finalizing her divorce from Tom Cruise. “That was not me; that was from a film, that wasn’t real life. I know that image!,” she explained, saying the popularized version is “not true.”

Her favorite, it seems, is the clapping meme. You know the one. We all know the one. It happened during the 2017 Oscars where she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Lion. She was in the audience, giving someone a standing ovation, and clapping with her fingers stretched out in what was later labeled a “seal clap.” As it turns out, that’s not how she claps most of the time, only when she’s wearing a huge rock on her finger that she’s scared to damage.

“I had a massive heavy borrowed ring on and it was really painful, and I was scared of wrecking the jewelry. Ha! There’s always something behind the actual images that go out there, right?”

Here she is laughing about it with her Lion co-star Dev Patel. We love a human whose confidence isn’t shaken by some harmless Twitter humor.

And then there’s my favorite Nicole Kidman meme, and most likely a favorite also for everyone who loves the movies. The actress’s ad for AMC theaters will go down in history as an artifact of a time when the future of the communal movie-watching experience was on the line. It became so famous, it even inspired its own SNL sketch.

The script Kidman is passionately acting out was a little too sincere for the irony-infested waters of social media, so its users naturally proceeded to mold it into all kinds of wholesome and not-so-wholesome virtual patchworks. Though, if we’re being truly honest, we all love, feel and agree with everything she’s saying. That’s why it’s so near and dear to film fans (who were coincidentally the ones who had to watch it every time they sat down at an AMC theater chair). Heartbreak really does feel good in a place like this.

The iconic actress, whose filmography is one of the boldest of her generation, is right there with us, too. “I’ll do anything for cinema, so you can meme me as much as you want,” she concluded. Nicole, you make memes better.