The second season of Big Little Lies hasn’t even aired on television yet and already its stars are being asked about the possibility of more episodes.

Speaking to Variety this week, Nicole Kidman revealed that she’s not hopeful about the possibility of a third series of the smash-hit Emmy award-winning series, but for a very good reason.

“I think it would be hard to get the whole group together,” Kidman said. Fair enough. Logistically, getting three insanely popular movie stars – Kidman, her co-star and producing partner Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern – not to mention two of the most in-demand actors in young Hollywood (Zoe Kravitz and Shailene Woodley) together for yet another season could be tricky. If that third season doesn’t happen, we’ll totally understand. 

“But we would love to do it,” Kidman added, giving us all hope that diaries could be consulted and allowances might be made.

Big Little Lies, Kidman told Variety, is the most popular project she has ever made, and the thing that she is recognised for on the street more than anything else. (More than Moulin Rouge! More, even, than Paddington!)

“That’s the character people talk to me about more than anything else,” Kidman told the publication. “When I saw the therapy scene, which people really responded to, I thought I was terrible. And everyone was like, ‘No, no!’ I think it was because I felt too exposed and vulnerable. It was probably too much for me to see.”

The show has resonated with everyone, both inside and outside the industry, including one very famous fan: Meryl Streep. The triple Oscar-winner emailed Kidman and Witherspoon after the show swept the table at the Golden Globe Awards (Kidman won Best Actress, her co-star Alexander Skarsgard was named Best Supporting Actor and the series won Best Drama) to put her hand up for a role in the next season.

“She goes, ‘I suppose now I have to join you’. And we were like, ‘What?’ The two of us [Kidman and Witherspoon] were just shocked,” Kidman recalls. “She hadn’t even read [the script]. That’s how much she wanted to support us.”

Perhaps we should be counting our blessings when it comes to what we do have of Big Little Lies. There shouldn’t even be a second season of the show when you consider the fact that the original Liane Moriarty novel upon which the series is based wraps up neatly with the exact same conclusion as the first season.

There was no more story to tell. And yet the popularity of the first season, plus a desire from Moriarty to continue revisiting the lives of these complicated women in sunny, moneyed Monterey, meant that there will be a brace of brand new episodes coming to Sky Atlantic in the new year. 

Instead of being devastated about the fact that a season three might not happen, let’s be thankful for what we do have. 

A forthcoming season, a starring role for Meryl Streep, and a scene in which Reese Witherspoon hurls an ice cream cone at said Streep. We are truly blessed.

The second season of Big Little Lies will air on Sky Atlantic in 2019. 

Images: HBO