Give Nicole Kidman a Break: Leading Actors Must Support Female Directors

Eight years ago, Oscar-winning actor Nicole Kidman made a promise on camera to work with at least one woman director every 18 months.

“Every 18 months, there has to be a female director in the equation,” Kidman said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. “Because that’s the only way statistics will change when other women start to go, ‘Oh, I’m actually going to choose only a woman now.’”

Kidman made this pledge nearly five months before The New York Times and The New Yorker posted explosive reports detailing now-convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of sexual assault, launching the global #MeToo movement that demanded change for women, especially women in Hollywood.

A lot of noise has been made about supporting female directors in the wake of #MeToo, but progress has been slow. According to IndieWire’s annual round-up, the 2025-26 film season is looking particularly bleak, with just 14 studio films directed by women expected to come out this year. But if there’s one person in Hollywood who is doing her part, it’s Kidman.

Yesterday, Kidman’s latest movie, Holland—a mystery thriller directed by Mimi Cave—was released via streaming on Amazon Prime. It marks a five-in-a-row streak for Kidman for projects directed by women, and it’s at least her 11th project with a female director since her 2017 pledge. In fact, according to Kidman’s recent Time magazine profile, she’s worked with 19 woman directors over a period of eight years (including as a producer only, and on upcoming projects).

• The Beguiled (2017), directed by Sofia Coppola
• Top of the Lake: China Girl, directed by Jane Campion (Episodes 201 and 205), and Ariel Kleiman (Episodes 202, 203, 204, and 206)
• Destroyer (2018), directed by Karyn Kusama
• The Undoing, directed by Susanne Bier (Episodes 1–6)
• Roar, “The Woman Who Ate Photographs,” directed by Kim Gehrig
• Expats, directed by Lulu Wang (Episodes 1– 6)
• Babygirl (2024), directed by Halina Reijn
• The Perfect Couple, directed by Susanne Bier (Episodes 1–6)
• Spellbound (2024), directed by Vickey Jenson
• Holland (2025), directed by Mimi Cave

She also served as a producer on the 2023 series Love & Death, which utilized women directors, and has two upcoming TV series with women directors: Scarpetta with director Charlotte Brändström for Amazon Prime, and Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Apple TV+. Suffice to say, Kidman is making good on her promise, and then some.

As Babygirl director Halina Reijn said in a 2014 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “[Kidman] is one of the few people who practices what she preaches when it comes to feminism and empowering women.”

But Kidman—who hinted in her Time profile that one reason she works at a breakneck pace is because she feels pressure to help projects like this get made—can’t possibly keep up this pace. YouTube comments on the Holland trailer were quick to point out that Kidman never seems to stop working.

“Nicole’s 50th project in the last two years,” one user wrote.

“I felt somethings [sic] wrong with me, but I can’t understand why. Then I realize, Nicole Kidman hasn’t made a new project for a month,” wrote another, with over 700 upvotes.

 “People go, ‘You’re a superwoman,’” Kidman told Time. “I hate it.”

The fact is, Kidman is not super-woman. She’s a human being, with four children, to boot. Someone, or several someones, need to pick the torch lit by Kidman and let this poor woman get some rest.

How about one of the A-list Hollywood men who almost never star in movies directed by a woman? Matt Damon, in his career of over 50 films, has never starred in a movie directed by a woman. Neither has Tom Cruise, one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing actors and Kidman’s ex-husband. And if Kidman can do 19 in eight years, Leonardo DiCaprio could at least get his all-time number up to 4.

Of course, it doesn’t look like Kidman will be taking a break anytime soon. After all, she’s signed on to do Practical Magic 2 with Sandra Bullock for Warner Bros. The rumored director? Oscar-winning filmmaker Susanne Bier. The work never stops.