Nicole Kidman called out for skipping Hong Kong quarantine for 'Expats' shoot
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Nicole Kidman has sparked a backlash in Hong Kong after the actress skipped the country's strict COVID-19 quarantine to shoot the Amazon series 'Expats' in the city.
Nicole Kidman has sparked a backlash in Hong Kong after the actress skipped the country's strict COVID-19 quarantine to shoot the Amazon series 'Expats' in the city.
Kidman reportedly took a private jet from Sydney to Hong Kong on August 12 and was exempted from the city`s seven-day hotel quarantine for vaccinated people arriving from Australia, despite Sydney going into lockdown following a surge in Delta variant cases.
A local news outlet reported that Hong Kong`s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau is "under mounting public pressure" to explain the preferential treatment Kidmam got. The Bureau has confirmed that the Australian actors and other film crew had been granted an exemption "to carry out designated professional work."
The Oscar-winning actors` presence in Hong Kong after dodging some of the most stringent quarantine rules in the world has caused consternation in the press and on social media. Despite the draconian nature of the quarantine rules, they have generally been viewed, outwardly at least, as equally applied until the Kidman incident.
In recent weeks, Mark Tucker, the chairman of HSBC, one of the world`s largest banks, was required to undergo three-week hotel quarantine after flying in from the UK.
It was also reported that Kidman was seen out and about shopping in Hong Kong, in the last week, and has been a source of discussion in the city`s tabloid press.
On social media, the reaction has been uniformly negative. Here have a look.
Two things United all of Hong Kong
— Sunchartist (@sunchartist) August 19, 2021
1) Olympic athletes
2) Nicole Kidman
For different reasons though
Dear #HongKong friends and family, While you are locked into a hotel room for three weeks, how does it feel to know that if you are from Hollywood, you are exempt from the barbaric quarantine rules HK residents are subjected to?https://t.co/ty4OW1A303
— Deborah Kan (@debkhk) August 19, 2021
Olympic medalists are required to quarantine in HK but Nicole Kidman doesn’t because she is a Hollywood star and needs to film “EXPATS” https://t.co/1ZixxqUP4Z
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 18, 2021
Gov says Nicole Kidman's exemption was granted "taking into account that [the trip] is conducive to maintaining the necessary operation and development of HK's economy"
— Shibani Mahtani (@ShibaniMahtani) August 19, 2021
Not sure what the rest of the 7 million are doing if not "maintaining" the economyhttps://t.co/CaEZE2UMl5
In July 2018, Amazon handed out a straight-to-series order for `Expats`, starring and executive produced by Kidman. The series is based on Janice YK. Lee`s book `The Expatriates` about a group of close-knit wealthy women expatriates in Hong Kong. Australian scribe Alice Bell has penned the script for the series which is directed by Lulu Wang and co-stars, Jack Huston.
This is not the first quarantine controversy that Kidman has been embroiled in. In June 2020, there was a media storm after the actor and her husband, Keith Urban, were exempted by the Australian state of New South Wales` hotel quarantine in favour of home quarantine after they flew into Sydney from the US ahead of production of the miniseries `Nine Perfect Strangers.'