One of the most highly-anticipated films coming to this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is the latest from director Karyn Kusama, titled “Destroyer.” The film comes on the heels of Kusama’s last film, the incredible thriller “The Invitation.” However, this time, all eyes are on the filmmaker as she has a major star leading the way, but not how you might recognize her. You see, the glamorous Nicole Kidman doesn’t look anything like you have seen her before.
“We always knew that what we wanted her to look like was a real middle-aged woman with a past that she wears on her face,” said Kusama in an interview with Vanity Fair. “With sun damage and sleep deprivation and stress and rage, just in her whole physical body.”
And boy, they really did a number on Kidman. The actress, who plays a LAPD cop who went undercover as a young woman to infiltrate a criminal gang, hardly resembles the woman who has lit up the big screen in films like “Moulin Rouge” and “Stoker.” No, in “Destroyer,” the Academy Award-winning actress looks exactly like what a rugged, war-torn LAPD undercover detective might look like.
“Ironically, she also hates being in the makeup chair,” Kusama said. “She just wants to be on set working. So we had to make it as short an application as possible.”
Kusama’s latest is a bit of a departure for the filmmaker, as she’s getting a prime release later this year, an A-list star headlining, and a subject matter that she hasn’t really tackled before. But joining the filmmaker are familiar collaborators, writers Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay. The latter of which being her husband. The trio previously worked on “The Invitation.”
“We’ve all loved bank robbery stories as a place to start, because they almost never go well,” Kusama said. “There’s a kind of particular American madness to thinking you’ll be the one who gets away clean. We were really focusing on characters who weren’t criminal masterminds, but fringe dwellers of American society. Yet they still hold out the hope that they’d beat the system.”
And ultimately, it looks like Kusama might have another winner on her hands. If anything, audiences can expect something different from the filmmaker. “It’s different from anything else I’ve done,” she concluded.
“Destroyer” debuts at this year’s TIFF before debuting in theaters December 25.