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Nicole Kidman - Biography |
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Nicole Mary Kidman was born in
Honolulu, Hawaii to Janelle Ann MacNeille Kidman and Dr. Anthony David
Kidman. Her father is a biochemist and a clinical psychologist in Lane
Cove, Sydney and author, who is also heavily involved with the labour
movement. Her mother is a nursing instructor and edits her husband's
books. At the time Nicole Kidman was born, her father was a Visiting
Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. The
family returned to Australia when Kidman was four years old, when her
father took on a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney. She
attended Lane Cove Public School in her primary years.
Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia, born in 1970. Kidman's parents and
sister both reside in Greenwich, a suburb on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman,
a Catholic, attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney with her sister
and attended North Sydney Girls' High School, also on the North Shore.
Kidman started taking ballet lessons when she was four. This led to
studies at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People, where she is now
Patron, then at the Phillip Street Theatre, where she majored in voice
production and theatre history. Living in Longueville she studied at St
Marys, but dropped out when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer;
Kidman concentrated on her family responsibilities until her mother's
recovery.
Kidman's first appearance in film came in 1983 when, as a fifteen
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, she appeared in several
Australian movies and TV series, notably including the soap opera A
Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam (1986), Emerald City (1988), and
Bangkok Hilton (1989).
In 1982, she appeared in the video for Roxy Music's song "True To
Life".[citation
In 1989, Kidman starred in the thriller Dead Calm as Rae Ingram, the wife
of naval officer John Ingram (Sam Neill), held captive on a Pacific Ocean
yacht trip by the psychotic Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane). The thriller
film received generally positive reviews; the staff of Variety.com
commented: "Throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the
character of Rae real tenacity and energy." Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert
noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "...Kidman and
Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together." In 1990,
she appeared opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, a stock car racing
movie. After this, Kidman starred with Cruise in Ron Howard's Far and Away
(1992). In 1995, Kidman featured in the ensemble cast of Batman Forever.
On November 20, 1993 she hosted Saturday Night Live.
Kidman met Tom Cruise on the set of their 1990 movie, Days of Thunder.
Cruise was married to actress Mimi Rogers at the time, and later divorced
her. Kidman and Cruise were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride,
Colorado. The couple adopted two children, daughter Isabella Jane Cruise
(b. December 22, 1992) and son Connor Anthony Cruise (b. January 17,
1995), and lived in Los Angeles, Australia, Colorado, and New York City.
They separated just before their 10th wedding anniversary. At the time she
was 3 months pregnant and subsequently had a miscarriage. Tom Cruise filed
for divorce in February 2001. The marriage was dissolved in 2001, with
Cruise citing irreconcilable differences as the cause of the divorce. The
reasons for the dissolution have never been made public. In an interview
in the June 2006 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, Kidman reported that she
still loved Tom Cruise. Kidman told the magazine: "He was huge; still is.
To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was
lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him." In addition, she has
expressed shock about their divorce.
The 2003 film Cold Mountain was plagued by rumours that an on-set affair
between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the breakup of his
marriage. Both vehemently denied the allegations, and Kidman eventually
won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that published the story.
She donated the money to a Romanian orphanage in the town where the movie
was filmed. There were also rumours of her and Jim Carrey going out after
the two were spotted at restaurants together, but they both denied it
explaining they are just the best of friends. Shortly after her Oscar win,
there were unconfirmed rumours of a relationship between her and fellow
Oscar winner Adrien Brody. She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and
dated him into 2004. Nicole has recently revealed in an interview she was
secretly engaged when her divorce from Tom Cruise was legalised and before
she met Keith Urban. She will not reveal who her fiancee was.
Kidman met country singer Keith Urban at G'Day LA an event honouring
Australians in January 2005. Kidman and Urban were married on Sunday June
25, 2006, at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St
Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney. They maintain homes in Sydney and
Nashville, Tennessee. |
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Nicole Kidman - Personal Quotes |
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[on her marriage to Tom Cruise
- August 2000]: Every day there is a compromise. Living with
somebody requires a lot of understanding. But I love being married.
I really love it. Sometimes I try to downplay it a bit because
people are like, "God you guys!" I just feel so fortunate that I
have found someone who will put up with me and stay with me.
[on husband Tom Cruise]: I wouldn't want to be married to me, but
luckily he does.
[commenting on her break-up with Tom Cruise - August 2001]: Now I
can wear heels.
It's so bizarre, I'm not scared of snakes or spiders. But I'm scared
of butterflies. There is something eerie about them. Something
weird!
[on winning the Academy Award for The Hours (2002)]: And I am
standing in front of my mother, and my whole life I have wanted to
make my mother proud. And now I'm going to make my daughter proud.
When I heard about the Suzanne role in To Die For (1995), I thought,
"I'll never get it - it'll be offered to someone else." So I called
Gus (Gus Van Sant) at home, and he took my call, thank God. I told
him I'd seen Drugstore Cowboy (1989), and I really wanted to work
with him. I said I was destined to work with him.
I think it's important that we don't all have to hold our heads high
all the time saying everything's fine.
These different people that I play become the loves of my life.
The split [from Tom Cruise] left me very fragile but I'd love to
marry again.
I would love to have boobs and a butt like Jennifer Lopez but I'm
not having surgery so there it is.
[on receiving her star on the Walk of Fame]: I've never been so
excited to have people walk all over me for the rest of my life.
You want to take some responsibility in your choices so that it sets
the groundwork for that next generation of actresses - so for me
working with Lars von Trier, I would hope that says to another
generation: "go and seek out those directors, it's ok"
[on Dogville (2003)]: One day it would be a fairytale, the next it
was a nightmare. Lars (Lars von Trier) was gentle with me - he was
gentle and soft, then he would beat me up emotionally when he felt
he needed that. I did not always register what was happening until
afterwards but you shouldn't have too much awareness as an actor, I
don't think.
I have a boy's body. I would prefer to have more curves because I
think that's more beautiful. I would much rather have J. Lo's
[Jennifer Lopez] body than mine.
[on filming The Interpreter (2005) at UN headquarters in New York]:
As a backdrop for a thriller, it's fantastic, but also since I'm
Australian and I've always worked internationally and this is an
international place in New York, I really like the kind of
communication it represents. I know I sound very much like my
character now, but I do believe in this place.
[on Cold Mountain (2003), The Human Stain (2003) and Dogville (2003)
being released within months of each other]: It's weird because
they're all coming out at once. But I made them over 2 + 1/2 years.
You look at somebody's work as an actor and you can see their
emotional life being fed into it and you can kind of feel them
through it. That's far more interesting than anything I could say
about where I'm at or who I'm with. It's good to have a little
distance. If you discuss your love too much, it just damages it.
[on the troubled The Stepford Wives (2004)]: It's a comedy. We hope.
Even from a very early age I knew I didn't want to miss out on
anything life had to offer just because it might be considered
dangerous.
Cinema is a director's medium, so you're saying, "What do you want?"
Being an actor is about adapting - physically and emotionally. If
that means you have to look great for it and they can make you look
great, then thank you. And if you have to have everything washed
away, then I'm willing to do that too.
[on Birth (2004)]: This is a film about love. What is a great love?
Is there a love of our life? Do you ever recover from the loss of
somebody that was so important to you?
Stanley Kubrick taught me to believe in myself artistically. I spent
my 20s raising my children, and wanting to, and being married. That
was my driving force. And then he said to me, "No, you have to
respect your talent, and give it some space, and give it some time."
Which was a lovely thing to be given. And my children were a little
older then.
It was by chance that The Hours (2002) came along. Was I in a place
where I could say, "I'm going to go to England and make this?" Yes.
Could I do that earlier, when I was married? No, I couldn't travel
like that. We had a thing where we couldn't be separated for more
than two weeks. So that made a lot of work just not possible. Which
was fine by me.
I have moments where I've said, "Don't tread on that crack in the
pavement, don't have a black cat walk in front of you." Deep down am
I superstitious? No. Do I believe in trying to be as kind as
possible and as compassionate as possible because ultimately you're
alone with yourself and your own conscience, and you want that to be
as clear as possible? That's not superstition. You have to just try
and stay pure and know what you value.
Usually, a young actress can't deliver because she doesn't have the
emotional baggage, really, to play those things. That's something
that's very beautiful about becoming a woman, and becoming a woman
in your 30s. If you've lived your life, and lived it where you've
said, "I want to be a participator and not a voyeur", then you have
an enormous amount to pull on.
I'm still just finding my way through. I don't actually see a path
in front of me. I can see not ever doing it again, and I can also
see other things pulling me away from this. It's strange, because I
know it's in my blood in terms of having to somehow act or express
myself creatively, but I'm willing to do it different ways if need
be. And I think that's partly because when I went through my divorce
I dealt with the idea of never ever working again, and never being
here and never able to be an actress, and went through an enormous
amount of soul searching, and at that time, I was very ready to give
it all up, and dealt with that emotionally. I was going, "Well, I'll
never be able to do this again." And that was OK. And, strangely, as
life is so strange, that was when everything exploded.
I never feel like I'm in control. There's a certain type of actor
that relinquishes control when they act, and then there's another
type who ends up being a producer and director and they're more
someone that likes to take control. I fall in the first category,
where I like to relinquish control, and fit into somebody else's
world. And that's just lately, but you never feel like you are
making choices. You feel like they're finding you in a strange way.
That's why when people say, "What role do you want to play next?", I
say, "I don't know". I never know. It's about responding to things
rather than planning.
I think someone said my career defies all logic [laughs]. Because I
choose the sort of strange little films, and somehow they're the
things that make my career.
So if you talk about a box-office career, then I'm a disaster. But
somehow, you know, I still manage to find my way to work.
I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm
not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which
things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay
completely in the role as the actor and as the character.
I'm at a time of my life now where, for me to want to go back and
work, it'd have to be something that I really feel passionately
about.
Regrets are ridiculous, so I don't regret, no.
[talking about her character from Batman Forever (1995)]: Chase is
attracted to the darker side of life. Batman is very appealing to
her.
To be an actor you have to have a certain amount of madness in you.
That's why, when people meet you and you seem very together, they
are quite surprised--they don't see you behind closed doors.
[speaking of her father Antony Kidman]: He's a great father, I can
call him at three in the morning and he's there for me.
By the time I was a teenager, I had developed skills as a writer,
and my father encouraged me to think about a career in journalism. I
began keeping a diary, which I maintain to this day. I used to fill
whole notebooks with my writings.
My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they
never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it. They
said that I couldn't be an actress because I would be taller than
all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead.
It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I
am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to
fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an
exhibitionist.
Do you know I'm always scared that one day I'll look back and say
"God they were the best years of my life and now what?" There are
moments when you feel as if you have been blessed for a while,
moments when you think this is perfect, moments when you start to
believe that even for an hour, even for a year, it might all happen.
So I'm determined to keep making it get better and better.
It's a very brave thing to fall in love. You have to be willing to
trust somebody else with your whole being, and that's very
difficult, really difficult and very brave.
[about her first role at the age of five]: I was one of those
terrible kids who said everyone's lines.
Since I have fair skin, I have to stay out of the sun. I can't stand
the sun. I dyed my hair red for a while during the 1990s but I'm
actually a natural blonde.
I'm very close to my sister, Antonia (Antonia Kidman): Every day we
swim together. I love my sister.
When I was a child, I was a natural towhead. Now my hair is
naturally a darker shade of blonde.
I'd like to be wise. You have to go through a lot to get there, but
I'm willing to go through a lot."
What's the point of doing something good if nobody's watching.
Even from a very early age, I knew I didn't want to miss out on
anything life had to offer just because it might be considered
dangerous.
I believe that as much as you take, you have to give back. It's
important not to focus on yourself too much."
I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated
with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet, when
your identity becomes mixed up in the way people are perceiving you.
I have a little bit of a belly, a tiny bit of pooch. It's the one
thing I don't want to lose. I just like having some softness. If I
lose that, then Tom might leave me.
I never knew I'd be in a musical, let alone win an award for one.
There's no drugs, no Tom in a dress, no psychiatrists.
Having gone through all of this, I feel in some ways calmer now.
It's strange, but sad. I think I'll always be sad.
I love acting, but it's much more fun taking the kids to the zoo.
"My life collapsed. People ran from me because suddenly it was 'Oh
my God! It's over for her now!' (On her split with Tom Cruise)".
I love working with people who are inspired and obsessive.
As a child, my hair was naturally red but since I was 13, my hair
turned light blonde naturally. It's really strange but it happened.
Ever since Chase through the night, the directors made me dye my
hair red as they all thought it suited me at the time. Even for Dead
Calm, Philip Noyce made me dye my hair red. Now the directors &
studios just let me keep my natural blonde hair.
For an actor, facial expressions & emotions are really important.
That's why I'll never have Botox. I've always been against that &
seeing Botox on TV with all the swelling & pain put me off it
anyway. The directors always allow actors with Botox but I just say
no way, not for me. Drinking lots of water, eating fruit & doing
yoga is what keeps me looking young naturally. I swear by it. I also
use creams with natural ingredients to make wrinkles less visible.
Everybody should try these things rather than going the plastic
route, which I just hate.
You don't have to be naked to be sexy.
I'm a person that carries everything that happened to me in my past,
with me into the future. I refuse to let it make me bitter. I still
completely believe in love and I remain open to anything that will
happen to me.
If I packaged toothpaste and told you you were gonna get half the
toothpaste in the tube, you probably wouldn't buy it.
It would be far easier to go, 'Oh, I wish I loved women,' but I
don't. I love the way a man thinks. I love the way a man smells. I
love the way men look. And I'm hooked on the male physique - hooked
on it. |
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Nicole Kidman - Filmography |
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Need (2009)
The Lady from Shanghai (2008)
The Reader (2008) .... Hanna Schmitz
Australia (2008) .... Lady Sarah Ashley
The Golden Compass (2007) .... Marisa Coulter
... aka His Dark Materials: Northern Lights (UK)
Margot at the Wedding (2007) .... Margot
The Invasion (2007) .... Carol Bennell
Happy Feet (2006) (voice) .... Norma Jean
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) .... Diane Arbus
Bewitched (2005) .... Isabel Bigelow/Samantha
The Interpreter (2005) .... Silvia Broome
... aka Interprčte, L' (France)
Birth (2004) .... Anna
The Stepford Wives (2004) .... Joanna Eberhart
Cold Mountain (2003) .... Ada Monroe
The Human Stain (2003) .... Faunia Farley
... aka Couleur du mensonge, La (France)
... aka Menschliche Makel, Der (Germany)
Dogville (2003) .... Grace Margaret Mulligan
... aka Dogville (France)
... aka U - Der Film 'Dogville' erzählt in neun Kapiteln und einem
Prolog. (Germany)
The Hours (2002) .... Virginia Woolf
Panic Room (2002) (voice) (uncredited) .... Stephen's Girlfriend on
the Phone
Birthday Girl (2001) .... Sophia, alias Nadia
The Others (2001) .... Grace Stewart
... aka Autres, Les (France)
... aka Otros, Los (Spain)
Moulin Rouge! (2001) .... Satine
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) .... Alice Harford
... aka EWS (USA: promotional abbreviation)
Practical Magic (1998) .... Gillian Owens
The Peacemaker (1997) .... Dr. Julia Kelly
The Leading Man (1996) .... Academy Awards Presenter
The Portrait of a Lady (1996) .... Isabel Archer
Batman Forever (1995) .... Dr. Chase Meridian
To Die For (1995) .... Suzanne Stone Maretto
My Life (1993/I) .... Gail Jones
Malice (1993) .... Tracy Kennsinger
Far and Away (1992) .... Shannon Christie
Billy Bathgate (1991) .... Drew Preston
Flirting (1991) .... Nicola
Days of Thunder (1990) .... Dr. Claire Lewicki
"Bangkok Hilton" (1989) (mini) TV Series .... Katrina Stanton
Dead Calm (1989) .... Rae Ingram
... aka Dead Calm: A Voyage Into Fear (USA: poster title)
Emerald City (1988) .... Helen, Mike McCord's Girlfriend
The Year My Voice Broke (1987) .... Nicola
"Vietnam" (1987) (mini) TV Series .... Megan Goddard
Room to Move (1987) (TV) .... Carol Trig
... aka Winners: Room to Move (Australia: syndication title)
Watch the Shadows Dance (1987) .... Amy Gabriel
... aka Nightmaster (USA)
Australiana a Roma, Un' (1987) (TV) .... Jill
The Bit Part (1987) .... Mary McAllister
Windrider (1986) .... Jade
Archer (1985) (TV) .... Catherine
... aka Archer's Adventure
Wills & Burke (1985) .... Julia Matthews
"Five Mile Creek" .... Annie (12 episodes, 1985)
- America (1985) TV Episode .... Annie
- One Fine Day (1985) TV Episode .... Annie
- A Lot of Hot Air (1985) TV Episode .... Annie
- A Death in the Family (1985) TV Episode .... Annie
- The Great Coach Race (1985) TV Episode .... Annie
(7 more)
"Winners" (1985) TV Series .... Carol Trig (episode 1: Room to Move)
"A Country Practice" .... Simone Jenkins (2 episodes, 1984)
- Repairing the Damage: Part 2 (1984) TV Episode .... Simone Jenkins
- Reparing the Damage: Part 1 (1984) TV Episode .... Simone Jenkins
Matthew and Son (1984) (TV) .... Bridget Elliot
Bush Christmas (1983) .... Helen
... aka Prince and the Great Race
BMX Bandits (1983) .... Judy
... aka Short Wave (USA: video title (bootleg title))
Skin Deep (1983) (TV) .... Sheena Henderson
Chase Through the Night (1983) (TV) .... Petra |
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Nicole Kidman - Related Links |
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Wikipedia: Nicole Kidman
YouTube: Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman at Celebs, Inc.
Nicole Kidman at Babemania.com
Top Celebrities Sites:
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