‘MEME ME’

Nicole Kidman Reveals the Actual Stories Behind Her Most Famous Memes

No, the Oscar-winning actress doesn’t really clap like a seal.

Nicole Kidman has some bad news for anyone who is strongly invested in the idea that she claps like a seal. Or that she celebrated her divorce from Tom Cruise by throwing open her arms, tilting back her head and cheering. Or that she reacted to Will Smith smacking Chris Rock at the Oscars by rising up out of her front-row seat with her mouth agape. “There’s always something behind the actual images that go out there,” and none of is actually what is being speculated, the Oscar-winning actress told GQ magazine about her most famous memes. At the 2017 Academy Awards, she was filmed clapping just her palms, her long fingers curved back like a marine mammal’s fins. “I had a massive heavy borrowed ring on and it was really painful, and I was scared of wrecking the jewelry,” she explained. As for the picture of her “celebrating” her divorce, “That was from a film, that wasn’t real life,” she said. She also confirmed that she wasn’t really reacting to Smith’s infamous slap at the 2022 Academy Awards. The photographer who shot the viral image had previously said it was taken hours before the ceremony started, when Kidman saw actress Jessica Chastain. But there’s one meme that Kidman is fully on board with: the infamous “Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this” line from her AMC Theatres ad urging movie-goers to return to theaters after the Covid-19 pandemic. “I’ll do anything for cinema, so you can meme me as much as you want,” she said.