Nicole Kidman is grateful to Jodie Foster for replacing her in 2002’s “Panic Room” when she was “having a breakdown.”
“There’s this misconception that somehow female actresses are at each other, or they don’t like each other or whatever,” Foster, 61, told The Hollywood Reporter during a roundtable discussion with Kidman, Naomi Watts, Brie Larson, Jennifer Aniston, Anna Sawai and Sofía Vergara. “Like, Nicole, I took over a movie that you had to leave.”
Kidman responded: “Yes! And thank you. I was in a really bad way. I was like, ‘I’m having a breakdown.’ And Jodie took over, thank the Lord.”
The 2002 thriller followed Foster and a young Kristen Stewart, who played her daughter, as they are forced to hide inside the panic room of their New York apartment when intruders break in.
Kidman had started filming the movie but bowed out after she sustained a serious knee injury from 2001’s “Moulin Rouge” musical, according to Entertainment Weekly.
She didn’t elaborate in the Hollywood Reporter interview on the reason she felt she was having a “breakdown,” but it was around the same time her marriage to first husband Tom Cruise ended in 2001 after 11 years. She is now married to singer Keith Urban.
Earlier this year, she discussed the toll her divorce took on her even as her career hit new heights.
“I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well,” the 56-year-old told Dave Karger for his book “50 Oscar Nights,” which came out in January. “That’s what happens, right?”
Kidman was explaining how she wasn’t able to enjoy her 2003 Oscar win for “The Hours,” according to People magazine.
“So, I literally walked in [to the Vanity Fair party afterward], carried it around, was completely overwhelmed, emotional, shaking and I didn’t enjoy it,” Kidman recalled. “I was almost apologetic, which is so stupid. I wish I could have enjoyed it more.”
In 2022, Kidman told Variety of “Panic Room,” “Jodie came in and was just brilliant.”
Kidman and Watts also talked about their “40-year” friendship during the discussion, which the “Big Little Lies” actress noted “did not start in acting.”
“No, it started down at the pub,” Watts agreed.
Kidman elaborated on how certain roles can be difficult for her emotionally, mentioning she once threw a rock through a window at her house after a tough day on the set of “Big Little Lies.”
“I threw a rock because [the door] was locked, and I couldn’t get in,” she explained. “I’d never done that in my life. I obviously [had a lot] pent up. I broke the whole thing. It cost a fortune.
“And a lot of times, it’s six months of 12-, 14-hour days, and there really isn’t the time to go, ‘I need to take care of myself.’”
She said she also had to take on a lighter role after taking on the grief-filled series “Expats.”
“After ‘Expats,’ I went and did a comedy because I went crazy with my own psychology. I was like, ‘This is unhealthy,’” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “And it’s something that I think we need to talk about as actors — protecting your body so that you can live for as long as you are given on this earth. Because it’s very tough on the psyche.”
