Besties Actors Naomi Watts + Nicole Kidman Portray Fox News Gretchen Carlson

Playing a famous, dynamic heroine still alive is formidable for any actor. Imagine the added challenge to two close friends playing that same woman within the same year. This is current reality for actors Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman, both playing former Fox News morning show anchor Gretchen Carlson.

Gretchen Carlson Sued Fox News in July 2016

Carlson’s Fox News contract expired on June 23, 2016. On July 6, 2016 Carlson sent shock waves through media world, filing a lawsuit against then Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, claiming sexual harassment. In the coming months, women across media at Fox and beyond stepped forward in a seismic list of allegations against media’s most prominent men.

Carlson, Miss America 1989 hailing from Minnesota, settled her lawsuit with then 21st Century Fox for $20 million. Sworn to silence by an NDA, Gretchen Carlson remains mute and unable to comment on her story as portrayed by Naomi Watts in the Showtime series ‘The Loudest Voice’ and Nicole Kidman in the upcoming December 13 opening of ‘Bombshell’.

Naomi Watts in Porter Edit

AOC profiled Naomi Watts, based on her Porter Edit August 2 interview. The British-born Watts moved to Australia at age 14.

“She’s a hero,” enthuses Watts of Carlson. “She was the first, inadvertently bringing about the #MeToo movement [which exploded 15 months later], and she doesn’t get a huge amount of credit for that.” Carlson’s settlement with Fox was worth $20 million, with terms that prevented her from working on the mini-series or any other projects connected to the lawsuit. Watts met her for the first time at the show’s premiere. “I had to do everything in my power not to cry and just fold into her,” she says.

Naomi Watts Is Lensed by Jason Kibbler in 'No Surrender' For Porter Edit August 2, 2019

Inside ‘Bombshell’ from Kidman’s Perspective

W Magazine’s new fashion story and Lynn Hirschberg interview about the Fox News scandal zero in on ‘Bombshell’, with Nicole Kidman playing Gretchen Carlson, Charlize Theron as Fox News host Megyn Kelly and Margot Robbie as a composite character Kayla all-in as a rising Fox News star.

“I liked that our story is a study of how women relate to a toxic environment,” says Kidman, on her role playing Carlson “with a combination of beauty, confidence, and carefully calculated outrage . . . “We want to tell complicated stories about women, and that’s very difficult. The world likes clear-cut winners and losers, abusers and victims, but reality is not that simple. It’s always a little dangerous to give a predator like Ailes any measure of humanity, but to get at the problem of harassment, you have to understand how someone like Ailes manipulated these women.” Kidman paused. “And I must say, I liked putting on the Gretchen dresses. It was like wearing a suit of armor.”

Fox News Gender War Goes Lives in 'Bombshell' Opening December 13, 2019 | W Magazine