The queen of Cannes
> Nicole Kidman appears in three films, two of which are running for the top Palme d’Or prize at the festival, as well as a TV series
Dogville.
Others told how she had to grin and bear humiliations and mind games on the set.
Even when she was headlining big-budget blockbusters like Batman Forever in 1995, Kidman made time for whip-smart roles in indie films like Gus Van Sant’s satire on fame, To Die For, which confirmed her as a major talent. But she had to wait until 2003 for a best actress Oscar for her depiction of tortured novelist Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. Two more nominations have followed, the latest for Lion last year. Its storyline, of a young man from India adopted by an Australian family who searches for his long-lost relatives on Google Earth, resonated with Kidman. She adopted two children – Isabella and Connor – with Cruise, and has had two others since with New Zealandborn country singer Keith Urban.
She said she felt an immediate connection with the woman she portrayed in Lion, Sue Brierley.
“I told her a lot about myself, and it was almost like she already knew,” Kidman said.
“I just felt ever since I was young that I was going to adopt a child,” she added.
Kidman was born in Honolulu where her psychologist father was working at the time, and her family returned to Australia when she was four.
She took to drama from a young age, eventually quitting school to study acting.
She first caught the eye as a 14year-old in the 1983 Australian television film, Bush Christmas, and won plaudits internationally for the thriller, Dead Calm, in 1989.
Her life was transformed the following year when she met Top Gun star Cruise on the set of the racetrack romance, Days of Thunder. The two married in 1991 only to split a decade later in one of Hollywood’s most famous divorces.
Once one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood, she took a step back from acting after falling for Urban. They married in 2006 and have two daughters.
But not even an unfortunate brush with Botox could stop her coming back.
“I did try Botox, unfortunately, but I got out of it. Now I can finally move my face again,” she confessed.
She was back to her best in the low-budget drama Rabbit Hole in 2011, which won her another Oscar nod.
Like many top actors and directors, Kidman has been drawn by the lure of top-drawer television series, winning plaudits for her roles in Hemingway and Gellhorn and most recently, with Big Little Lies.
She will also be on the red carpet for the fourth time at Cannes for a special screening of her friend Jane Campion’s second season of Top of the Lake, in which Kidman is almost unrecognisable as a foil to Elisabeth Moss’ small-town detective. – AFP-Relaxnews