14 DAY TRIAL // If one is to believe reports in the media, Nicole Kidman is addicted to Botox. Not only that, but it’s also reportedly costing her movie roles because she’s losing expressiveness. Director John Cameron Mitchell of “Rabbit Hole” says he knows nothing about that.
Mitchell worked with Kidman on “Rabbit Hole,” a film that will arrive in theaters later this year but which was already shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and is getting nothing but positive reviews.
The film, also starring Aaron Eckhart, tells the story of a happily married couple who sees their life turned upset down by the death of their child – and suddenly find out they no longer know if they can move on as before.
As the plot of the film makes it easy to see, this is a drama, which means actors have to be able to show a lot of emotion – and a varied range of it as well.
This explains why the Botox question came up in a recent interview Movieline did with Mitchell – and the director should receive praise for how diplomatic he was about the whole thing.
“As a filmgoer and a Kidman fan, I can’t help but think of how the changing appearance of her face over time affects her characters, her characterizations, and how they’re received. Was that a consideration for you as a director, especially shooting close-ups and attempting to capture expressiveness?” the Movieline interviewer asks bluntly.
“I didn’t really follow the EW timeline of her face. When I met her, that’s who I knew. I sort of remembered some other films. She hasn’t been under the knife. I don’t know anything about Botox, but she certainly wasn’t doing it in our film. In our film, she played the most real person – looking-wise, acting-wise,” Mitchell responds.
Not only has Nicole not had any Botox while working on this film, but she also didn’t enjoy none of the benefits of having a makeup artist and stylists.
“We didn’t glam her up; she’s a beautiful woman anyway. But for the first time, she feels like she’s her age. She wasn’t afraid of the shots where she just doesn’t look good – weeping, this and that. She went all the way,” the director insists.
Oddly enough, Mitchell then goes on to speak about Mickey Rourke and how he managed to “work through” his surgically deformed face, which is a result of his attempts at launching a career as a professional boxer.
When it’s men (except they’re Sylvester Stallone), the media doesn’t ask questions about work done to the face, either plastic surgery or Botox, Mitchell says. Therefore, pressure on women is significantly bigger.
“People would ask me, ‘How’s her face?’ It’s just so weird. That was just an augur of the types of films she had made, which weren’t of great quality. So what you do focus are things like that: ‘What is she doing?’ And that just says something about her choices in the last few years, maybe,” the director concludes by saying, still tiptoeing around the question of Botox and Nicole Kidman.
To check out the full interview of John Cameron Mitchell with Movieline, please refer here.