Meryl Streep reveals Nicole Kidman’s “ocean” secret

Meryl Streep revealed the “wild” secret she learned about Nicole Kidman from Reese Witherspoon before filming Big Little Lies.

“Reese [Witherspoon] told me the very first night we were up in Monterey, before we started shooting, she said, ‘You know what she does?’” Streep, 74, recalled at the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award Gala on Saturday, April 27.

“I said, ‘No, Nicole?’ She goes, ‘Yeah, you know what she does? She goes out at 5, before dawn, and she goes skinny-dipping behind the hotel in the ocean.’ I looked at Nicole and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? The Pacific is like 48 degrees in March.’ Nicole said, ‘Yeah! I love it!'”

Streep called her friend “a wild mongrel talent” and also presented Kidman, 56, with the honour at the Los Angeles event.

“You’re like a mustang, a workhorse, and a champion racer all in one, but one whose spirit, they’ll never break. Never. The range of your work is stunning. Your list of credits and roles and good deeds in the world would take a normal person three lifetimes to achieve,” Streep said.

“Your life and your resume challenges everything we know about how many hours there are in the day and how many places a woman can be at one time. It’s hard not to envy Nicole, but it’s also impossible not to be in awe of her.”

Streep gushed about Kidman’s acting skills, which she became a witness of during season 2 of Big Little Lies.

She said, “When an actress bares all and leaps off into the unknown, she dives deep into the darker parts of what it is to be a human being,.”

Adding, “but I don’t think it’s bravery. I think it’s love. I think she just loves it. And I think that’s the greatest attribute an actor can have — that blend of appetite and curiosity and recklessness. You have that, baby.”