‘Expats’ Duo Nicole Kidman And Lulu Wang On The Emotional Toll Of Bringing Novel To Life
29.04.2024 - 23:41
/ deadline.com
The stars and writer-director of the Prime Video limited series Expats sat down Sunday at the Deadline Studio at Prime Experience. Based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s bestselling novel of the same name, Expats revolves around the lives of a group of expatriates in Hong Kong — more specifically, it’s story of three women from different backgrounds linked by a tragic event, grief, loss and complicated family issues.
Appearing on our panel Sunday were star/executive producer Nicole Kidman, actors Ji-Young Yoo, Sarayu Blue, Jack Huston and Brian Yee, and creator/writer/director/executive producer Lulu Wang.
Watch the conversation here, and scroll down for a photo gallery of the event.
Kidman, who has become as prolific a producer through her Blossom Films as she is an actor, also just received the prestigious AFI Lifetime Achievement Award over the weekend, something celebrated by all her Expats colleagues as we began our studio session with them on the sidelines of Amazon’s FYC event. As a producer, Kidman knew exactly the formula that makes for a compelling series.
“I mean this was a labor of love and then when Lulu came in she was like, ‘I’m ready, but the way to do it is I need to be able to control the whole thing and know exactly what I will have, the agency and the ability to do that.’ And that’s what we do as a production company, hopefully, is to supply that support. And so a lot of it is just that, and then you cast incredible actors, and that’s it, the job’s done,” Kidman said, making it sound a lot easier than creating a show shot on this scale in Hong Kong.
For Kidman it is also a highly emotional role, playing a woman whose young son vanishes while under the watch of a babysitter, played by Yoo. She said it was Wang