Nicole Kidman: a Redhead Aussie
Nicole (Mary) Kidman was born on June 20, 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii to
Dr Antony David Kidman and Janelle Ann (nee MacNeille). At the time, her
father was a cancer research specialist in Washington, D.C. The family
returned to Australia when Nicole was four years old, when Tony Kidman
took on a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney. Nicole was an active, artistic child, and focused from an absurdly
young age. She began taking ballet lessons at 3, moving onto mime at 8 and
drama at 10. Her first public role was at 6, as a loud sheep in her
elementary school\'s Christmas pageant. She grew up fast. Janelle
was an active feminist and Anthony a labour advocate, both of them
discussing the issues of the day with their kids over dinner and having
them hand out pamphlets on the street. When it came to acting, Nicole
possessed the same intensity as her future husband. She was always seen as
an outsider - she was known as Storky due to her peculiar height
(she fast reached a whopping 5\' 11" - 180 cm) - and, as she
approached her teens she departed even further from her peers.
While the other girls were down the beach, eyeing up the boys, Nicole
spent her weekends at the Philip Street Theatre, watching, learning. She
had her sights set on higher things - as you\'d expect from someone whose
influences include Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and, above all, Katherine
Hepburn - and, indeed, she had her first kiss onstage in Frank Wedekind\'s
Spring Awakening. As the play concerned sexual repression in the late
1800\'s, it was something of a wild one too, Nicole having to yell "Beat
me! Harder! Harder!" each night. More impressive than a clumsy
fumble under the pier, eh? Her first appearance on film came in 1983 when, as a 15 year-old, she
appeared in the Pat Wilson music video for the song "Bop Girl". By the end
of the year she had secured a supporting role in the television series
Five Mile Creek, and four film roles, including BMX Bandits
and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s and early 1990s she appeared
in several Australian movies and TV series, notably including the soap
opera A Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam (1986),
Bangkok Hilton (1989) wherein she played an inadvertent drug
mule sent to a fabulously unpleasant jail and Flirting (1991). In
1989 she appeared in Dead Calm which gained her notice in the
United States. Dead Calm did it for Nicole. Vietnam had won her an
Australian Film Institute Award and an American agent and now there was
something genuinely meaty to work with. Nicole received a call from Tom
Cruise\'s people, asking her to come talk about his next project, Days
Of Thunder, to be directed by Tony Scott. Meeting Cruise and his
people in a hotel conference room, she was embarrassed by the way she
towered over the megastar. Now she was convinced she\'d be sent on her way.
But the next day she was informed she was in. And the height problem? "It
doesn\'t bother Tom, so it doesn\'t bother us". It was her American debut. And there was plenty of media interest as
Cruise and Nicole became \'an item\'. Rumours of an affair were rife,
fuelled by the fact that Cruise\'s divorce from Mimi Rogers came through a
couple of weeks before the end of filming. Kidman stressed the romance did
not begin till a little later, but she was seen on Cruise\'s arm at the
1990 Academy Awards, and the couple would marry, in a rented house in
Telluride, Colorado, on Christmas Eve that same year. Suddenly, Kidman was a star, and not simply due to her marriage. The TV
miniseries Bangkok Hilton was hugely impressive, as was her catty
senior school-girl in Flirting. Next she was the mysterious
moll of Dustin Hoffman\'s Dutch Schultz in Billy Bathgate,
then Cruise\'s muse and lover, Shannon Christie, in Ron Howard\'s epic of
Irish exile and redemption, Far And Away. Now, for those who thought Kidman to be simply Mr Cruise and a very
lucky lady indeed, came two roles which proved her excellence for good. In
Malice, as Tracy Kennsinger, she was fantastically beastly to Bill
Pullman. Then, in To Die For, she was even beastlier to poor Matt
Dillon as she strove to find TV stardom. Her wicked seduction of young
Joaquin Phoenix was masterful, her eventual death at the hands of a
supremely sinister David Cronenberg uniquely disturbing. For this role,
having knocked Meg Ryan out of the picture by calling director Gus Van
Sant direct, she spent three days in a Santa Barbara inn, watching nothing
but trashy TV, then spoke in a full-blown US accent from the beginning of
rehearsals to the end of production. It worked - she won a Golden Globe
for her efforts, having earlier been nominated for Billy Bathgate. Eyes Wide Shut was a big media event, though many considered it
cold and slow (despite the supposedly red-hot trailer). Kubrick himself
would die soon after, but all seemed well in Camp Cruise. The couple had
adopted two children - daughter Isabella Jane and son Conor Antony - and
Kidman\'s quote that "I just feel so fortunate that I have found someone
who will put up with me and stay with me" seemed based on a solid
foundation. Yet the marriage wasn\'t as tight as we all thought, Tom and Nicole
separating in February, 2001: there was much media speculation about the
reasons for this, but both celebrities maintained their privacy and were
guarded in their public comments. One persistent rumour claims however
that Kidman\'s desire to bring up their children Catholic, and her critical
views on Scientology caused the problems in her marriage with Tom Cruise,
who is known to be an outspoken follower of the teachings of L. Ron
Hubbard. The couple said very little about their divorce publicly, but her
professional connection to Cruise will be noted for some time to come.
Before their separation, Kidman starred in weirdo thriller The
Others, directed by Alejandro Amenabar (writer of Cruise\'s forthcoming
Vanilla Sky) and co-produced by Cruise himself. The film - slow,
surreal and deadly quiet - was an object lesson in how to build tension,
with the whole thing being held together by Kidman\'s extraordinary
performance as a fraught young mother living with her kids in a seemingly
haunted country mansion while her husband is away at war. It was
utterly terrifying, the best horror movie in years, though the greatest
mystery surrounding it must be why Kidman, nominated for a Golden Globe,
was not similarly forwarded for an Oscar. She found consolation in an Oscar nod (and Golden Globe win) for Baz
Luhrmann\'s Moulin Rouge, filmed earlier, wherein she played
beautiful courtesan Satine, plaguing poor poet Ewan McGregor as well as
much of aristocratic society. We see Kidman sing (she\'d also have a
Christmas Number One duetting with Robbie Williams on Something Stupid)
and, utilising the training she began 31 years ago, dance. After that came The Hours, placing her in what must now be seen
as appropriate company. Co-starring with Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore,
she was up there amongst the finest screen actresses alive. The film was
set in three separate times and examined the writing and effects of
Virginia Woolf\'s Mrs Dalloway, Kidman playing Woolf herself, struggling in
a lifeless marriage, growing ever more distant from her family and
friends, and finally discovering a dreamt-for freedom in suicide.
Radically altering her appearance with a prosthetic nose, she still
managed to convey (mostly with her eyes) the flashes of frustration,
indignation and love that kept this highly sensitive depressive going as
long as she did. A tremendous performance, deserving of the Oscar and
Golden Globe she now won. Nicole claimed that, throughout her marriage to Cruise, she\'d been
playing a supporting role, pushing his career before hers. And it\'s
clearly true that she was hardly prolific during that time. Now
divorced (and having suffered a miscarriage just a month after the initial
separation) she set about changing this. In 2004, Kidman appeared in the remake of The Stepford Wives
alongside Glenn Close, Faith Hill and Bette Midler. In September of the
same year, Kidman\'s film Birth in which the 37 year-old actress\'
character falls in love with a 10 year-old boy (played by Cameron Bright),
who she believed to be a reincarnation of her dead husband, the film was
met with a mixed reception. Despite the mixed reception, the film was
nominated for the prestigious Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film
Festival.
Movies in production
The Lady from Shanghai, Emma\'s War, Fur, American Darlings, Wedding
Season, and the animated musical Happy Feet are future movies
for Kidman. Kidman was cast in The Producers however has had to
pull out due to filming Eucalpytus in Australia and was replaced
with Uma Thurman. Eucalpytus would have been Kidman\'s first native
film since Moulin Rouge! but filming was halted after the cast and
crew determined that the script needed to be re-written. She is currently
filming the Diane Arbus bio-pic Fur. There is a rumour that Kidman
may star in an upcoming yet to be titled Baz Luhrmann Australian period
film.
Unknown words:
pageant - инсценировка, зрелище
stork - аист
whopping - огромный
peer - сверстник
fumble - нащупывать, неумело обращаться
inadvertent - ненамеренный
rife - обычный, распространенный
moll - любовница гангстера
weirdo - странный
haunted - населенный призраками
prosthetic - протезный, накладной
prolific - плодовитый
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