Movies Nicole Kidman is Queen of the Desert in trailer for Werner Herzog film The Oscar winner takes on an empire. By Nick Romano Nick Romano Nick is an entertainment journalist based in New York, NY. If you like pugs and the occasional blurry photo of an action figure, follow him on Twitter @NickARomano. EW's editorial guidelines Published on March 25, 2017 11:58AM EDT “The deeper we immerse ourselves into the desert, the more everything seems like a dream.” Such is the surreal trailer for Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog’s odyssey across the Middle East with Oscar winner Nicole Kidman. The actress stars as real-life trailblazer Gertrude Bell, who left England for Tehran in pursuit of a more liberating life. Her journey brings her a romantic tryst with a British officer (played by James Franco), danger from rigid cultures marred by female oppression, and a meeting with T.E. Lawrence (played by Robert Pattinson). “Every step in the desert, life and fire claim me,” Kidman’s Gertrude says in the footage. Damian Lewis also ranks among the cast of the film, which was written by Herzog and shot on location in Morocco and Jordan. “I said to Nicole, ‘I have to shoulder something very, very big onto you. I have to put it onto your shoulders. You will be in every single scene in the film, with the exception of the very first one,'” the illustrious filmmaker said during the Queen of the Desert press conference at the Berlin Film Festival in 2015. Update: Queen of the Desert will now be released in theaters on April 7 and on-demand beginning April 14. Watch the trailer above.