She recreated the magic during a recent appearance.
Sometimes, the best way to beat meme status is simply to embrace it. Last week, the “holding space” woman did a MAC commercial after her viral moment. Now this week, Nicole Kidman wore a look that channelled her pinstripe suit from that iconic AMC ad.
For those of you who are perhaps a little less “online”, a quick recap of the whole AMC thing. Basically, Kidman starred in a slightly silly, very meme-able commercial for AMC Theaters that saw her walking through an empty theater in a sparkly pinstripe suit. Whether you’re up on internet culture or not, you’ve almost certainly seen that still of Kidman staring intensely at the screen as the lights from the projector frame her head from behind as she delivers the now-viral line, “heartbreak feels good in a place like this”.
Kidman later told Elle, “It was just the desire to keep cinemas alive. I’ve had the best experiences in cinema.” As for her meme status, Kidman admitted to Entertainment Tonight that she “hides” when the commercial comes on at her local AMC. However, as she told GQ UK, “I’ll do anything for cinema, so you can meme me as much as you want.”
Kidman seemed to lean into the the internet fodder by proudly sporting an AMC-coded pinstripe suit on national TV. While promoting her upcoming erotic thriller, Babygirl, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Kidman donned a black and white pinstripe paired with a sheer black blouse with a high frilled neck—perhaps a subtle nod to her character in the film.
She stars as Romy, a high-powered CEO who harbors a secret sexual fantasy of being dominated. When she begins an affair with a young intern (Harris Dickinson), her personal life and career begin to fall apart at the seams.
During the appearance on the show, Kidman spoke about Halina Reijn’s upcoming psychosexual thriller. “It’s hopefully pioneering in a sense that it’s a female protagonist in this genre that has primarily been a male protagonist-dominated genre,” she said. “And it’s told through the eyes of a female writer-director.”
As Kidman previously said at a screening, the filming process for such an intense film wasn’t always easy. “There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration. It’s like, ‘Don’t touch me,'” she said. “There were times when we were shooting where I was like, ‘I don’t want to [simulate] orgasm any more. Don’t come near me. I hate doing this. I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life! I’m over it.’”
Later, she swapped the sheer blouse for a white T-shirt that featured a Babygirl poster with a glass of milk, in a nod to one of the sexual scenes that takes place in the film. The look was a perfect example of reclaiming a viral moment for good. She said it herself: she’ll do anything to get people into the cinemas—ideally to see Babygirl.