The Biography of Nicole Kidman
An actress who was relegated to playing decorative
Although many assume that Kidman is a native of
An awkward, gawky teenager who was teased
In 1989, Kidman got another major break when she was
By now a rising star in Australia, Kidman began
Following a role as Dustin Hoffman's moll in Billy
Kidman finally broke out of her window-dressing
In 1999, Kidman starred in her most talked-about film ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide
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parts for years and was known primarily for her real-
life role as the wife of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman
spent the latter half of the 1990s finally earning
the critical respect she deserved. Standing a willowy
5'11" and sporting one of Hollywood's most
distinctive heads of red hair, the Australian actress
first came to the attention of a wide American
audience with her role opposite Cruise in Days of
Thunder (1990), but it was not until she starred as a
homicidal weather girl in Gus Van Sant's 1995 To Die
For that she began to be regarded as a performer of
considerable range and talent.
Australia, she was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii,
on June 20, 1967. Her family, who lived on the island
because of a research project Kidman's father, a
biochemist, was involved with, subsequently moved to
Washington, D.C. for the next three years. After her
father's project reached completion, Kidman and her
family -- which also included her mother, a
nurse/educator, and a younger sister -- moved to her
parents' native Australia. Raised in the upper-middle-
class Sydney suburb of Longueville, she grew up with
a love of the arts, particularly dance and theatre.
Trained in ballet from the age of three, Kidman made
her acting debut in a nativity play when she was six.
By the age of ten, she was studying acting in drama
school, and she went on to train at the St. Martin's
Youth Theatre in Melbourne and at Sydney's Phillip
Street Theatre.
relentlessly because of her height, Kidman took
refuge in the theatre, and she landed her first
professional role at the age of 14, when she starred
in Bush Christmas (1983), a TV movie about a group of
kids who band together with an Aborigine to find
their stolen horse. This was followed by a role in
another adventure film, BMX Bandits (1983), and a
number of TV movies. Kidman's first breakthrough came
when she was asked to star in Vietnam, a miniseries
directed by John Duigan; the actress won positive
notices for her portrayal of an awkward 1960s
schoolgirl who matures into an idealistic 24-year-old
Vietnam war protester. She also won an American
agent, something that opened quite a few doors of
opportunity.
tapped to star in Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm. A
psychological thriller about a couple (Kidman and Sam
Neill) who are terrorized by a young man they rescue
from a sinking ship (Billy Zane), the film helped to
establish the then-19-year-old Kidman as an actress
of considerable mettle. That same year her reputation
was further boosted by her starring performance in
the made-for-TV Bangkok Hilton, which cast her as a
young woman incarcerated in a Thai prison on false
drug smuggling charges.
earning recognition across the Pacific. In 1989, she
was picked by Tom Cruise for a starring role in her
first American feature, Tony Scott's Days of Thunder
(1990). The film, a testosterone-saturated drama
about a racecar driver (Cruise), cast Kidman as the
neurologist who falls in love with him. A sizable
hit, it had the added advantage of introducing Kidman
to Cruise, whom she married in December of 1990.
Bathgate (1991), and a supporting turn as a snotty
boarding school senior in Flirting (also 1991), John
Duigan's wonderful and criminally little-seen coming-
of-age drama, Kidman collaborated with Cruise on
their second film together, Far and Away (1992).
Despite their onscreen pairing and some gorgeous
cinematography, the film got only a lukewarm
reception, and Kidman's subsequent projects, My Life
and Malice ( both 1993), were similarly
disappointing. Batman Forever (1995), in which she
played the hero's love interest, fared somewhat
better, but it did little in the way of establishing
Kidman as a serious actress.
typecasting when Gus Van Sant cast her as the
ruthless protagonist of To Die For in 1995.
Displaying a gift for very black comic timing, she
earned numerous awards and the respect of a number of
critics who had previously viewed her merely as the
sum of her physical parts. Further critical praise
greeted Kidman's performance as Isabel Archer in Jane
Campion's 1996 adaptation of Henry James' The
Portrait of a Lady. Now regarded as one of the hottet
actresses in Hollywood -- as well as one half of its most high-profile couple -- Kidman starred
opposite George Clooney in the big-budget action
extravaganza The Peacemaker (1997) and opposite
Sandra Bullock in the frothy Practical Magic (1998).
Both films weren't remotely as interesting or
successful as Kidman's concurrent return to the stage
in London's Donmar Warehouse production of The Blue
Room. Cast as several characters, one of which
required her to play a scene in the nude, Kidman
inspired a sensation among both audiences and
critics, the latter of whom were moved to write
numerous lines of sweaty praise for the actress' full-
bodied flirtation with nudity. The play enjoyed a
sold-out run in both London and New York, and Kidman
earned an Evening Standard Award and Olivier
nomination for her performance.
to date, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. The film,
which was cloaked in secrecy from the beginning of
its production, also starred Cruise as Kidman's
physician husband, and the couple's onscreen pairing
was hyped as one of the project's major selling
points. However, despite gaining an added measure of
intrigue from Kubrick's death after shooting had
ended, Eyes Wide Shut opened to a radically mixed
reaction; for her part, Kidman came away with some of
the film's best reviews for her portrayal of a bored,
sexually adventurous Manhattan housewife. The
following year, she kept busy with a number of
projects: included amongst them were Jez
Butterworth's Birthday Girl, in which she played a
Russian mail order bride, and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin
Rouge, which cast her as a courtesan in 19th century
Paris. Following the success of Moulin Rouge, Kidman
gained even more positive notice for her turn as an
icy mother seeking the key to a dark mystery in
Alejandro Amenabar's spooky throwback, The Others. By
the time of the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards were
set to take place, Kidman found herself nominated for
her memorable performances in both films. Though her
emotionally fragile performance in The Others lost
out to Sissy Spacek's performace in Todd Field's In
the Bedroom, Kidman's upbeat performance in the
lively Moulin Rouge found versatile actress taking
home a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or
Comedy in addition to earning her an Oscar nomination
for Best Actress. Though it couldn't have been any
further from her flamboyant turn in Moulin Rouge,
Kidman's virtually unrecognizable role as Virginia
Woolf in the following year's The Hours kept the
Golden Globe nominations steadily flowing in for the
acclaimed actress.
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