Nicole Kidman

For an actress as A-list famous as she is, Nicole Kidman’s career has been defined by a consistent run of bold and surprising choices, often accompanied by equally bold and surprising wigs.

After seeming set for a fairly standard Hollywood ingenue trajectory in films like Days of Thunder and Batman Forever, Kidman’s first really interesting role came as a ruthlessly ambitious wannabe TV star in Gus Van Sant’s dark 1995 comedy To Die For. After that she continued to work with auteur directors including Jane Campion on Portrait of a Lady and Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut, while keeping her box office powder dry in more mainstream fare such as The Peacemaker and Practical Magic – a delicate balancing act that would help sustain her status as both an A-list star and Oscar favourite throughout the next three decades and beyond.

Her first Oscar nomination came in 2002 for her dazzling leading turn in Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge. She lost to Halle Berry in Monsters’ Ball, but didn’t have to wait long to pick up her own gold trophy, famously winning Best Actress ‘by a nose’ for her portrayal of writer Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry’s The Hours – a film and performance still held up in near religious terms by a certain generation of sensitive gay men.

Despite committing some of her most iconic performances in the years that followed – Birth, Dogville and Margot at the Wedding to name but three, it would not be until 2011 that she was nominated again, this time playing a grieving mother in the quietly affecting Rabbit Hole. Up against Natalie Portman’s tour-de-force performance in Black Swan, there was never much possibility of Kidman grabbing a second win that year.

In 2017 she earned her first nomination in the Supporting category, this time playing Dev Patel’s adoptive mother in Lion. Once again a win was never considered likely, with Viola Davis’ triumph for Fences one of the most foregone conclusions of any award handed out that year.

In 2022 she was back in the leading category for Being The Ricardos, not an all-timer performance, but in a strange post-Covid Oscar year, one that probably the first time she came reasonably close to joining the two-timers club. She ultimately lost to Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Having established a lucrative side-hustle in leading pulpy TV dramas like Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers and The Perfect Couple, Kidman shows no sign of resting on her laurels. Her performance in Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller Babygirl was widely tipped to bring her a sixth nomination in 2025, but ultimately she missed the cut.