Queen of the Desert

Nicole Kidman’s Adventures with Werner Herzog and Gertrude Bell

“I call it Werner World. Werner World is just a different realm. It’s glorious. I said to him, ‘Werner, I feel like I’ve been in a dream with you for the past two-and-a-half months, and now I’ve got my feet back on earth.’ I’m at a place where I’m so interested in exploring things and going places that I haven’t been. I want my life to be full, so that means all of us – my family – up and moving to Morocco and doing this so we can have the experience.” - Nicole Kidman

Kidman’s interest in exploration mirrors Gertrude Bell’s own adventurous spirit. While Kidman admires Bell greatly, she also shares her insight on why Bell pursued travelling and adventure, “She went off and lived a life that I would only dream of living. What she did is amazing, but she did it through motivations that, I believe, come from huge loss so that’s fascinating in itself, too. And the landscape and what the desert gave her was her salvation.”

As Kidman discovered, while Bell was a true trailblazer in a time when women were not treated as equals, especially in politics, she also had ambiguous aspects. “There’s an interesting fact about Gertrude though, is that she was not a supporter of the suffragette movement, so that was fascinating,” says Kidman.

Kidman’s extensive research of Bell enables her to bring a realistic and nuanced performance to QUEEN OF THE DESERT.

On Nicole Kidman’s performance as Gertrude Bell in QUEEN OF THE DESERT, director Herzog says, “Now, Nicole Kidman. Wait for that one. Wait for it. I make an ominous prediction: How good she is.”

Read Queen of the Desert: About

Read Queen of the Desert: Nicole Kidman’s Adventures with Werner Herzog and Gertrude Bell

Read Queen of the Desert: A New Lawrence of Arabia