Nicole Kidman Told Alexander Skarsgård to Throw Her Against Wall in Graphic Abuse Scenes

Big Little Lies, which concluded its explosive run on HBO on Sunday, dealt with cheating and lying and bullying and rape.

But most affectingly, it did something few other pieces of programming ever opted to do: It took the horrors of domestic violence and threw the reality of it right into viewers’ faces. Nicole Kidman’s Celeste Wright, a former lawyer, gets yanked and punched and slapped by her husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård). There’s nothing implied about it, and it doesn’t happen behind closed doors.

Kidman — who, along with costar Reese Witherspoon, executive-produced the series — and Skarsgård never prepped the scenes, because Jean-Marc Vallée, who directed every episode of the miniseries, doesn’t rehearse.

“We would walk on the set. We would just do it. I was possessed. I was in a different place. My body was physically beaten up. I would throw myself into it. Alex was careful. I would say, ‘Throw me against the wall.’ It’s very raw. You only see snippets of what we shot. We shot way more than what’s in the show,” Kidman tells Yahoo Style.

It’s a topic that’s tragically resonant. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a woman is assaulted or beaten every nine seconds in the United States. One in three women have been physically abused. Kidman, a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, has made violence against women one of her tentpole issues. And, yes, she is gratified that audiences are reacting so viscerally to Celeste’s domestic terror, which veers from love to passion to fear to denial and then back again.

“There’s anger and abuse and betrayal and sadness, the disintegrating of the family. Celeste is too frightened to go back to her career because she thinks she’ll lose her family,” says Kidman. “It’s not voyeuristic. Women and men both come up to me. I’m astounded at the way people have connected to the show. I feel so much a part of the world.”

After she and Skarsgård wrapped their scenes, Kidman was black-and-blue, covered in actual bruises. She’d go home to her husband, Keith Urban, and their daughters, Faith and Sunday, and pop an Advil.

“I held a lot in. There were a couple of times I broke down and started crying and couldn’t stop. There were times where I never broke character, like in the final episode. I tried to be really interior about it,” she says.

Her scenes are visceral and painful to watch. Kidman says that she simply acted out what was on the page. “I was just in it. I just did it. I’m an actor. I’ve done lots of weird things. They’re very real stories. The emotion has to be there.”

Being married to a fellow entertainer helped, she says. “I have a very understanding family. Keith is an artist and has the whole makeup of being in an artistic partnership. We understand each other. When he’s writing songs, I stand back and watch the process and let him find his way.”

Kidman is vocal about the prevalence of domestic abuse, even though the topic is taboo for many; Celeste doesn’t tell any of her friends that her husband is hitting her and becomes a master at covering her welts with makeup. And Kidman herself is talking about the issue in the context of playing a beaten woman.

“I do a lot of work in this area anyway with UN Women. My antennae for it are very heightened. I emotionally felt my way into it. I love that there’s been so much discussion about it and it’s being put out there,” she says. “It’s deeply insidious. I love that people are emotionally responding to it.”

Equally unforced are the scenes between Celeste and her therapist, played by Robin Weigert. Both contentious and painfully honest, the sessions spotlight a mother slowly accepting the reality of her life.

“Robin, who plays the therapist, and I interacted in the same way as we did in the piece. We didn’t step out of character that much,” says Kidman. “I’m so reluctant to decipher it. I love the way the therapist is — those scenes are very authentic.”

Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style:

• Jessica Chastain’s Fairy-Tale Fashion Moment Isn’t What You Think

• In ‘Big Little Lies,’ Nicole Kidman Learned How to Cover Her Bruises on Camera

• Scarlett Johansson Is ‘Incredibly Proud’ to Show Her Daughter She’s a Working Mom
  

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