CRIME thriller The Undoing gripped viewers across the globe when it launched last year – but the dark scenes took their toll on leading lady Nicole Kidman.
The Oscar-winning actress played Grace Fraser in the Sky Atlantic drama, whose world is turned upside down when her husband is accused of murder.
The therapist finds herself grappling with all manner of traumatic thoughts as the case unravels and Nicole Kidman admitted that getting into the mindset had a profound impact on her.
Speaking to Marc Maron on his WTF podcast, Nicole admitted that she was left “physically sick” by her time on the show, along with several other roles.
“Even on The Undoing, it kind of happened where I just like suddenly was in this place of…There was sort of a disquietness to my personality,” the star recounted.
“Where I was uneasy and there was duress on who I was,” she went on.
“I went down for a week, because your immune system it doesn’t know the difference between acting and truth when you’re doing them.”
Nicole explained that this was be no means a phenomena unique to herself and was something she knew that many actors struggled with.
However, she said that while some had trained their bodies to cope with the emotional strain, it was something she struggled with.
Specifically, she said she suffered with insomnia in the days after her most intense scenes, but recounted her time filming Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut as one of her most extreme reactions.
“I just started screaming, I collapsed on the ground. I was that close to him,” she recollected.
Kidman isn’t the only actress to open up about the taxing nature of her TV roles.
Marcella actress Anna Friel recently revealed she was left “vomiting and poisoned with stress” during filming for the upcoming third series.
The Undoing is available to stream in full on NOW TV.
