Are the Monterey Five coming back for more?
Is Big Little Lies coming back for round three?
It doesn't seem likely, based on Nicole Kidman's comments at HBO's Television Critics Association winter press tour on Wednesday -- as much as she'd like to make it happen.
"Please don't move on!" she pleaded to reporters during a panel for her upcoming series, The Undoing. "We've been so focused on this and we would love to, but there are ideas that are further on down the track."
"Right now, look at Laura [Dern]. I don't think we'll ever get Laura back," Kidman quipped of the Oscar nominee. "She's working on so many different things… and Zoe [Kravitz]'s gone onto the Catwoman, so she's going to be doing other things."
Kidman expressed hope that "we can all collide again at some point," but noted that for now, she thinks The Undoing will satisfy fans' cravings. "This hopefully is juicy and fun," she shared.
Fresh off Marriage Story and Little Women, Dern also has Jurassic World 3 on her plate, while Kravitz is working on Hulu's High Fidelity and the upcoming film The Batman. Reese Witherspoon is pulling double duty on Apple TV+'s The Morning Show and Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere, while Shailene Woodley also has several film projects in the works.
HBO Programming President Casey Bloys addressed a possible third season of the series at the network's summer TCA presentation in July, just days after the show's season two finale.
"Never say never," he told reporters, but noted that with the cast's busy schedules, he'd be surprised if another season happened. Bloys explained that he approached the second season of BLL "skeptically" and was doing the same with a possible third season.
"What became clear to us [after season one] is 'Oh, there is a story to tell,' which was, 'What happens after a big lie like that? How does it affect everybody?' To me, on the face of it, there's no obvious place to go, no obvious story [after season two]," he said. "That said, this group is an extraordinary group of actors and producers, writers and directors. So, if they all came to me and said, 'We have the greatest take, listen to this,' I would certainly be open to it. But who knows? It just doesn't feel like it. But I'm certainly open to it."
As for The Undoing, writer and executive producer David E. Kelley -- who also worked on Big Little Lies -- said on Wednesday that any overt resemblance between the series was unintentional.
"[The Undoing] is so twisty and nothing is what it seems," Kidman offered. "As it unfolds, you can reveal more things, but right now, I think what the theme of it is… choosing to unknow things is a fascinating part of human nature, and what you choose to believe and what you choose to see."
"That's the basis of a lot of this. The psychology of this series is we choose to see certain things, but also everyone has secrets," she added. "They just do."
The Undoing, based on the novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, sees Kidman as Grace, a successful New York City therapist, living a ritzy life with her husband, played by Hugh Grant. A sudden, violent death turns everything on its head, and forces Grace to question everything.
The show offered Grant an opportunity to play a more complicated, dark character -- though he joked it's "closer to home" than his former rom-com roles.
"As for playing characters that aren't delightful… I've been consistently vile," Grant quipped, cracking that he doesn't have to do much "acting" on the series. "It's such a relief [to do this]."
The Undoing premieres on HBO in May. See more on Big Little Lies in the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
