Nicole Kidman forced to do bizarre act in new Netflix show: 'We're not doing it'

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show and wondered if the cast really wanted to shoot a particular scene or moment? Well, the cast of Netflix's The Perfect Couple, which includes Aussie star Nicole Kidman, has revealed that they all dreaded the show's opening credits sequence.

The mini-series, based on the book by Elin Hildebrand, is a murder mystery set at the wedding of a wealthy couple's son in Nantucket. But when a body is found, secrets are revealed, and everyone becomes a murder suspect.

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This makes it all the more odd that the series features a 30-second sequence of the whole cast happily doing a choreographed dance to Meghan Trainor's song 'Criminals'. While it's not quite the opening credits – all it does is feature the title at the end – it does feature in every episode of the series.

Fans have taken to social media to share their confusion over the sequence, with one user writing, "Can’t stop thinking about how the new Nicole Kidman series on Netflix opens with the entire cast doing a synchronised dance to a Meghan Trainor song."

"Really doesn't go with the vibe," another said.

"I wanted to watch this …now I’m not sure," a third added.

"The dancing scene is awesome, I love it," someone else said.

The Perfect Couple director Susanne Bier defends dance

Director and executive producer Susanne Bier revealed in an interview with Decider that dance almost didn't happen, but shared that "it was kind of my idea".

"It was never really planned, but there was in the script, there was like a nightmare scene where there was like a dance and it became this weird nightmare," she said. "I did not want to do that because I thought it was too dark.

"But there was something about dancing that kind of stayed with me. And then I was like, 'Okay, I want to do a dance scene as a title sequence.' And everybody went, 'No, no, no, no, no, no! Don’t do that'."

Unsurprisingly it was quite difficult to get the dance across the line with Bier revealing that her editor and the entire cast pushed back on the dance. However, this didn't stop the director and she hired a choreographer to pull a dance together and sent it to the cast.

"They all went, 'We’re not doing it, we’re not doing it. We are not doing it,'" Bier said. "And I was like, 'We’re just going to do it. We’re just going to do it on set. Okay? We’ll try it. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.'"

The whole 30-second sequence was shot in an hour and a half in order "to not let anybody think about anything, not let anybody breathe".

Nicole Kidman and The Perfect Couple cast try to shut the dance down

The stars even started a WhatsApp group to try and get the dance shut down. But thankfully, stars Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) and Ishaan Khatter (Don't Look Up) revealed that it wasn't as hard as they expected when they got to set.

"I will say that it was more fun than I think we were all expecting it to be," Meghann said. "Like we ended up having a blast doing it. It was just so silly. Like it just was silly."

"This is what I’ve been saying the whole time," Ishaan added. "I think that’s kind of what dance does, is it’s very liberating. I think that’s what we all felt towards the end of it, despite the hesitation that everybody walked into it with."

"Everyone was like, 'Oh, we’re not doing that.' I think at the end of the day, we were all sort of arm-twisted to go into it, but no one had to be forced to have fun. And I think we all had a blast."

Speaking with Variety, Nicole said she was a member of the WhatsApp group trying to get the dance cancelled, adding it took some time to convince her, "Because I didn’t feel like Greer would dance! I felt like Greer would watch."

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"But I danced as Greer. I think it’s great and I’m so glad they got us all to do it. ‘Cause there’s some joy in it."

Liev Schreiber was one of the few keen to do the dance, saying, "I wasn’t in that [WhatsApp] chain... The entire cast had a mutiny about this idea except for me, I was already in my trailer practicing the dance moves. I just like dancing and I was kinda disappointed when it came out that I’m not in it more because I thought I did it really well."

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