Until now, Nicole Kidman has best been known for marrying into Hollywood’s power elite rather than for her own prowess on screen. But all this may be about to change for the 27-year-old actress and wife of Tom Cruise.
Kidman’s performance in “To Die For,” which just opened, has given her film career the lift she has been seeking. Her screen elevation comes on the heels of her sultry co-starring role in “Batman Forever,” which provided the requisite box-office commotion this summer. The tall, pale, blue-eyed, strawberry blond has been handed her entry ticket to the Hollywood A-list.
In Gus Van Sant’s “To Die For,” a biting satire of television and its increasingly tabloid nature, Kidman turns in her most powerful performance to date. She plays a small-town beauty who will do anything for small screen fame–even murder.
The movie is a jaundiced look at a rating-obsessed business in which any fame is attractive on the small screen, even notoriety. In light of the O.J. Simpson trial, it’s an apt satire of American television and its culture of celebrity.
The defining moment of this vigorous rise in Kidman’s screen fortunes probably will come later this year with New Zealand director Jane Campion’s film adaptation of Henry James’ classic “The Portrait of a Lady.”
The question is whether Campion can draw out of Kidman the kind of performance that won Holly Hunter an Oscar in “The Piano.” If Campion can, Kidman may achieve her dream of seeking any role she wants.
The rapid rise in Kidman’s film fortune is only the icing on the cake for the actress, because she says she has what she cherishes most–a family. She and Cruise have two adopted children, 2-year-old Isabella and 6-month-old African-American son Connor.
“The truth is motherhood is the most wonderful experience because everything else pales in comparison,” she says.
“You come home and someone says, `Hi, Mom.’ It just puts everything in perspective. It gives you an enormous amount of emotional depth.”
The family spent much of the summer in London while Cruise filmed “Mission Impossible” and Kidman worked on “The Portrait of a Lady.” Recently she spent 10 days with her mother, a nurse, in Jordan on an archeological dig. But most of the time Kidman says she is busy being a mother.
All the attention drawn by the box-office success of Joel Schumacher’s less complex and tormented third installment of the caped crusader in “Batman Forever” leaves Kidman modest about her involvement.
“I played this character who’s in love with Batman, but I didn’t have to wear a batsuit or anything like that. There was action in the film, but that was left to Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell. They had the most stuff to do.”
Kidman says she took the role in the overtly commercial sequel to Tim Burton’s original two Batman films because she wants to play different roles.
“I think it’s important for any actor not to get stuck in one sort of theme. I’m really interested in all sorts of characters. I want to be a good actress. It’s not about fame; for me it’s about being versatile.”
Born in Hawaii to Australian parents and largely raised in Australia, Kidman was first noticed in the small budget film “Dead Calm,” with Sam Neill, and this led to roles in Hollywood in “Days of Thunder” (where she met Cruise), the less-than-believable “Far and Away,” the tepid “Billy Bathgate” and “My Life.” None of these made much of an impact critically, except she met the man she says was her destiny to marry.
“To Die For,” the film version of Joyce Maynard’s novel, is the kind of clever role Kidman has been seeking for some time. Her character is pretty and popular, and will do anything to be on television, even if it means starting out at the local cable channel doing the weather. She’s even prepared to seduce a teenage boy into murdering her young husband because his plodding acceptance of life stands in the way of her grabbing at fame.
In the end, the act itself makes her the television celebrity she has always craved. It’s a complex portrait of a woman who is focused on a goal almost to the point of indifference to others. Cruelty and selfishness mix with sexual attraction and appealing conviviality.
“I really wanted to work with Gus Van Sant, and I read the script and it was black and funny and something I’d never done before. I called him and said, `I can do it.’ I even told him I was destined to do it.”
To prepare for the role, Kidman says she watched television 24 hours a day for three days.
“I watched everything–talk shows, weather girls, and got that hypnotic feeling television gives you. This character’s an amalgamation of several people. Television in America seems to really define the culture, and it’s very limited. There’s a whole generation whose values come from the box, that’s it.”
“When you play someone like this who you know people won’t like, you have to find a reason why you like her. I actually thought she was an exquisite creature. I had to try not to be too judgmental about what she did.”
To capture the character, Kidman went for power dressing and the right haircut.
“She has a long mane which she cuts into a power haircut. And she puts on this face like a mask, and it became like my mask. She wears clothes that get her noticed. She’s someone who wants to be there when the opportunity for fame comes. For some things like this you prepare from the inside out.”
Kidman says she appreciates the difference between celebrity and wanting to be a respected actor.
“There’s a difference between becoming an actor and simply wanting to be famous. My character in `To Die For’ simply wants to be famous. Personally, I’m dedicated to acting. I know there’s a side of it, like being photographed a lot, that’s like living in a fishbowl. But I think you put those limitations there yourself. Both me and my husband live our lives in a way so we don’t succumb to that.”
In her own life, Kidman says she and Cruise keep a fairly low profile. There’s no entourage of bodyguards and assistants. And they like to just go to the pub or the cinema like anyone else, or take their children to the park.
“I value my privacy and try to protect that as much as possible. If you want to be recognized in public you can; if you don’t, you don’t. We approach it in a different way. We’re going to do what we want to do, and if that means going to the shops and there are a couple of photographers, well, there are a couple of photographers. They’ll take a couple of shots, then go away.”
The hardest part of being a celebrity is being interviewed, she says. She was in a cover feature spread in Vanity Fair during the summer.
“The difficult thing about interviews is you’re asked questions that nobody would dare ask you usually–the most private questions. And you’re expected to answer them. On the other hand, I don’t really think it’s something you can complain about. I feel very privileged to be part of the 2 percent of actors who are working in the world. It’s important to remember that–it’s a gift.”
Kidman grew up in Australia in a middle-class environment, but early on she says her height–5 feet 10–affected her life.
“Not being the pretty young thing, you tend to develop other strengths. I became determined I was going to be an actor.
“I had an early dream to be a ballet dancer, so I haven’t come anywhere near to keeping it. I did ballet for six years, and I had really bad feet.
“Then I discovered acting in a mime theater in Sydney, busking on the street for money when I was about 12. At 16 I joined a repertory theater. Now I’d really like to get better and better and be in a position that I can play any role I’m offered.”
As far as winning an Oscar goes, “I think if you’re in acting to win awards it doesn’t work. For me it’s about doing a wide range, choosing roles where you simply lose yourself in the character and it’s hard to see where I am.”
Kidman says she’d love to make another film in Australia, even though her career largely revolves around the studios in Hollywood.
“I would love to go back and make a movie. I went back in February and had such a great time. There seems to be so much energy and excitement there now. I’d go, if not for a film, then a piece of theater.
“I`ve just agreed to do a film for Australian director John Duigan next year. I can’t say what it is, but it’s not shot there and I’m not playing an Australian.”
It’s very likely she’ll work with Cruise again, she says, despite the failure of “Far and Away.”
“I think the most wonderful thing about our entertainment industry is that anything is possible. `Far and Away’ might not have been so well received, but in this industry you can come back anytime.”
