\u201cWhen I met with Nicole, she was like, \u2018No, no, no. If we option it, get <\/em>excited. \u00a0We don\u2019t option things just for the sake of it. We don\u2019t have time for that,\u2019 \u201d Moriarty said by phone when\u00a0recalling her\u00a0midmorning coffee meeting with Kidman in a Sydney suburb about 18 months ago.<\/p>\n \u201cShe kept her word.\u201d<\/p>\n Moriarty\u2019s 2014 bestseller \u201cBig Little Lies\u201d is now a seven-episode limited series on HBO. And it boasts the Oscar-winning actresses as leads and executive producers.<\/p>\n It continues in the HBO tradition of drawing marquee feature film stars to the small screen. And it serves as a bit of an antidote to the premium network\u2019s recent tent-pole attraction, “Westworld,” and the unusual religious drama \u201cThe Young Pope.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot since \u2018Big Love\u2019 have we had a drama that is this female-centric,\u201d said Casey Bloys, HBO\u2019s president of programming. \u201cThe issues they get into on the show are things people deal with in life, and it was nice to have this framework to put these stories forward.\u201d<\/p>\n But underneath the melodrama and moments of acerbic humor are women dealing with private angst, running the gamut of adultery, divorce, volatile marriages, sexual assault and the stresses of motherhood. Beneath all that too is a sense of sisterhood when intense situations call for it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really delved into a lot of issues that women are dealing with daily that we don\u2019t often see on-screen in this way,\u201d Witherspoon, 40, said on a recent weekday in Pasadena. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not black and white. These aren\u2019t women who are good or bad. We wanted to show the rainbow of the female experience, which I think is sort of absent in Hollywood in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n Kidman affirmed the dearth of nuanced roles for women and said it was symptomatic of a larger systemic issue.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need great roles,\u201d the 49-year-old actress said. \u201cOur stories are relevant; people do want to hear them. But our stories often get brushed off. Seeing five women front a project is not common \u2014 and it shouldn\u2019t be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to show the rainbow of the female experience, which I think is sort of absent in Hollywood in a lot of ways.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>\u2014 Reese Witherspoon, who stars in and executive produced the new HBO series “Big Little Lies”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In recent years, Witherspoon and Kidman have\u00a0been proponents of female-driven projects that redefine how women are portrayed through their respective production companies.<\/p>\n Witherspoon\u2019s Pacific Standard, which she co-founded with Bruna Papandrea in 2012, has been behind such female-led movies as \u201cWild,\u201d \u201cGone Girl\u201d and \u201cHot Pursuit.\u201d Kidman\u2019s Blossom Films\u00a0has spearheaded such films as the low-budget drama \u201cRabbit Hole,\u201d the romantic comedy \u201cMonte Carlo\u201d and the family drama \u201cThe Family Fang.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese women are trailblazers,\u201d Woodley, 25, said of her costars. \u201cThey made \u2018Big Little Lies\u2019 because they were sick of reading scripts that didn\u2019t honor women and womanhood. That has been really inspirational for me. I kind of joke now, like, \u2018If I don\u2019t start a production company soon, man, I\u2019m going to be throwing away all this beauty I\u2019ve been given in the form of learning from Reese and Nicole.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBig Little Lies\u201d went from book club page-turner to star-studded TV series all because\u00a0Witherspoon and Kidman had been looking for a project on which to collaborate. The actresses knew each other through Papandrea, who had known Kidman since the two were teenagers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nLaura Dern, left, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley in a scene from HBO’s all-star adaptation of the bestseller “Big Little Lies.” (Hilary Bronwyn Gayle \/ HBO)<\/em>
\nThe drama, which debuts Sunday, features five women \u2014 Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zo\u00eb Kravitz, in addition to Witherspoon and Kidman \u2014 as mothers of first-graders in a wealthy Northern California community. It\u2019s a setting that lends itself to social satire, replete with fake smiles and a heavy helping of passive aggressiveness in the battle for power and status. There\u2019s even a murder mystery that stitches the story together.<\/p>\n