Nine Perfect Strangers Gather on Amazon

Major star power, led by Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, highlights a mysterious new streaming tale

Starring on a show where nine people from vastly different walks of life gather at a strange, secluded wellness retreat, there was an exchange in an early episode that stuck with Melissa McCarthy. Her character Frances, a famous author newly dumped by her publisher, tells Masha, the mysterious Russian resort director played by Nicole Kidman, that she’s going to pull out of her 10-day program early. “I don’t want to suffer,” Frances says. “You’re already suffering,” says the ethereal Masha.

“Doing the show, you think a lot about what you do to cover up your problems,” says McCarthy. “When you mask your problems, it doesn’t make them better. At some point, you have to get them out. You’re already in the midst of being miserable and suffering, so make a change. That’s what I think this show is about.”

The limited series, based on Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty’s novel of the same name, follows a group of troubled city dwellers that are trying to get on a path of better living. Among the guests at Tranquillum House are Luke Evans as a gorgeous but slightly shady divorce lawyer; Samara Weaving and Melvin Gregg as a young couple whose relationship breaks down after winning the lottery; Regina Hall as seemingly the most normal guest at the retreat whose anger issues percolate under the surface; and Michael Shannon, Asher Keddie and Grace Van Patten as a family dealing with the grief of a lost son and sibling.

To help these guests face their demons, Masha employs some unique methods, including an afternoon of laying in your own grave. For the actors, the exercise struck an interesting chord. “It makes you think of very big questions,” says McCarthy. “What will be changed when you’re gone? Who will care? What have you left behind? Have you made something better?” Bobby Cannavale, who plays a former football star whose reasons for being at the wellness centre are somewhat of a mystery, agrees that the scene crept up on him. “It’s certainly confronting,” he says. “I will tell you that whenever we cut camera, every single person got out of those holes pretty quickly.”

The unusual methods, the secret lives of the characters and the eerie tone of the storytelling all contribute to the sense that what we might be watching is a horror thriller, not a how-to guide for self-help. “I think it really transcends genre,” says 50/50 director Jonathan Levine, who helms all eight episodes. “We certainly were playing with the audience’s expectations and using genre as a vehicle to tell this story and to keep it compelling. But for me, at the end of the day, it’s about the people.”

The location, a lush Australian landscape full of wildlife and exotic vegetation, adds to the feel that the action takes place far from civilization. “This place is in existence,” says Kidman of Masha’s compound. “The magical quality of the environment really helped us. It was like one of those things where you walk in and you go, ‘Is this real?’ We existed in this dream state for almost six months.”

In creating her mysterious character, Kidman allowed for her surroundings to really seep in. The Australian actress also admits to staying in character throughout the shoot. “The first time I met everyone, I walked in as Masha. I never related to anybody in any other way,” says Kidman. “I remember going over to people and putting my hand on their heart or holding their hand. The [cast] would talk to me or use my name, Nicole, and I would completely ignore it. At the end of the shoot, I think it was Melvin and Samara that came to me and said, ‘We’ve never heard your real voice or your Australian accent.’ The only way I could actually relate to people was that way, because otherwise I would be doing a performance, and I didn’t want to feel that way. It was a really weird place to exist.”

After her success with Big Little Lies and The Undoing, Kidman says the limited series is a fruitful landscape. And the key to her winning streak, she believes, is pairing up with prolific TV genius David E. Kelley and sticking to one director per show. “I haven’t actually done a show where you have different directors coming in and doing different episodes, so for me it’s more like extended cinematic storytelling,” she says, adding that maintaining that cinematic tension takes Herculean effort. “You have to be really rigorous with it,” she says. “[Filmmaker] Jane Campion, who’s a really good friend of mine, said, ‘It’s incredibly hard to keep a storyline vibrant and alive through a six- or eight-hour episode storytelling.’ People forget that that is an art form in itself.” 

Nine Perfect Strangers streams Fridays on Amazon Prime Video