Nicole Kidman: A Kind of Life

by James L. Dickerson

  Tom went on to talk about how he and Penelope had enjoyed the company of the children at his home in Telluride. “She’s beautiful,” he told Petez. “She’s a very skilled actress, but has an effortless quality about her. You look at Audrey Hepburn. She had that kind of elegance and yet was accessible.”

  Nicole did not mind him talking about their divorce—he had his opinions and she had hers—nor did she mind him discussing his point system for disciplining the children (it wasn’t the way she did it, but she could hardly argue against it), but there was something about him lumping the children in with his and Penelope’s activities that annoyed her. Most divorced women feel a certain amount of discomfort when their children are exposed to the father’s new love interest—and Nicole was no exception.

  Vanity Fair wrote about her children as if she were no longer in the picture. Just when she thought the nightmare that was 2001 was over, new issues arose to aggravate old wounds. Always prone to sudden changes in her health during times of emotional upheaval, Nicole was stunned to learn from her doctor, after a routine office visit, that her Pap smear had come back positive for possible cervical cancer.

  According to press reports, a follow-up biopsy came back negative to cancer, but doctors cautioned her that such results can be wrong. She was urged to undergo another test in several months to be certain. The Star reported that she was “freaked out” by the news, prompting a friend to say, “She’s been praying that everything’s okay, but she can’t get the fear that she has cancer out of her mind.”

  The cancer scare proved to be groundless, but it did take its toll on Nicole, leaving her emotionally and perhaps even spiritually bruised and battered by the experience. Because of what had happened to Janelle, cancer was the most menacing word in the Kidman vocabulary.

  Following on the heels of the cancer scare, Nicole had a fight with Tom, after which, according to news reports, she was taken to the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, where he received emergency treatment for what was diagnosed as a panic attack. Witnesses said she was shaking and sobbing, nearly out of control.

  Even though she continued to live in a whirlwind of emotions, Nicole pulled herself together and faced the tasks at hand, the most pressing of which was work on a new project, Dogville. Written and directed by Lars von Trier, the film was set in an American town in the Rocky Mountains in the 1930s, but it was shot primarily in a studio in Sweden, where the actors all lived in a hotel and dined dormitory-style together. To Nicole’s delight, she co-starred with screen legend Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Blair Brown, and Chloe Sevigny.

  With the Golden Globe Awards scheduled for January 20, 2002, she took a couple of days off from shooting Dogville to fly to Los Angeles to attend the ceremony, which was going to be broadcast on live television from Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton Hotel.

  The night before the awards show, Nicole was a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Wearing jeans and a low-cut, white blouse worn beneath a gold jacket, she appeared radiant and a little bit jittery. She wore her hair pulled back, an unfortunate decision since it high-lighted her darting eyes.

  Since she was nominated for best actress in a comedy or musical for her role in Moulin Rouge—and for best actress in a drama for her role in The Others—Leno asked her if she preferred one film over the other. She laughed and said she could not pick a favorite. When she learned she had two nominations—a distinct rarity—she said she thought, “I really have to appreciate this because this will never happen again and it’s one of those things were you go, ‘Wow!’”

  What she really wanted to talk about was Sweden, which she found—at minus twenty degrees—to be such a “serious” environment. Inexplicably, Nicole shifted the conversation to the topic of trolls. She explained that the part of Sweden where she was filming was famous for inventing the troll doll. “We went shopping for the trolls’ ‘cause I wanted to get trolls for my kids, and they all have—it was so strange—they all have genitalia,” she exclaimed. “They do! We went into this store. It’s weird.” She went on describe one troll as having a “huge red penis.”

  The following night, wearing a black strapless gown that was slit up to her upper thigh, Nicole arrived at the Golden Globes with her father and mother. Before going into the hotel, she introduced her father and mother to a television interviewer and confessed that she was “very nervous” about the event.

  Antony was asked if he was proud of his daughter. “Very proud indeed,” he said. “We’re hoping for a good result tonight.”

  Inside the hotel, when the award was announced for best actress in a drama, Nicole lost to Sissy Spacek for her performance in In the Bedroom. Nicole’s luck changed when actor Michael Caine came on stage to present the award for best actress in a musical or comedy. There were five nominations: Thora Birch for Ghost World, Cate Blanchett for Bandits, Reese Witherspoon for Legally Blonde, Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones’s Diary, and, of course, Nicole Kidman for Moulin Rouge.

  When Caine called out Nicole’s name, she energetically bounded to the stage. Taking the award from Caine, she said: “Wow! Thank you Hollywood Foreign Press.” Then she admitted that her hands were shaking. “This is really, really special,” she continued, “because I never thought I would be in a musical, let alone win an award for one. So I have to thank for that Mr. Baz Luhrmann. He believed I could do it. He’s innovative and a visionary and his partner Katherine Martin, they’re such a powerful creative force and I’m proud to say they are my friends. There is another man I would never have done this without—and that is Ewan McGregor. He’s so special. A magnificent person, a magnificent actor and he just makes you better being in a scene with you.”

  Later, in the evening the nominations were announced for best film (musical or comedy). Named were: Bridget Jones’s Diary, Gosford Park, Legally Blonde, Shrek, and Moulin Rouge. To no one’s surprise, Moulin Rouge was declared the winner, vindicating Baz Luhrmann, who went on stage to accept the award.

  Backstage, the show’s producer Dick Clark, asked Nicole if she was really all that nervous, to which Nicole responded, “My teeth are chattering.” He probably thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t. She went on to say that she and Russell Crowe, who was nominated for his roll in Beautiful Mind (he didn’t win) wanted the award committee to seat all the Australian nominees at one table. “But they wouldn’t allow us,” she said. “Thought we’d be too rowdy.”

  Nicole and Luhrmann were ebullient over their two awards, for it was the first recognition they had received for Moulin Rouge. Besides the obvious benefit of winning the awards, there was the possibility that they were a precursor to the Academy Awards scheduled for presentation in February. Historically, the Golden Globes have been accurate indicators of how academy members cast their votes.

  Nicole returned to the Dogville set, floating on a cloud back to Sweden. Seemingly following her were a contingent of tabloid reporters and photographers, eager to eavesdrop on her new life without Tom. One evening, they caught her having an “intimate dinner” with Jonas Ohlsson, a twenty-two-year-old production assistant, but when they attempted to take a photograph, the two separated, only to meet up again at Nicole’s chauffeur-driven car.

  Back on the set of Dogville the next day, Nicole resumed the persona of Grace, a woman on the run. Director Lars von Trier based the story on the song “Private Jenny” from The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, which is about a servant girl, a newcomer to a village where she is treated as an outsider, only to become the only survivor of an attack against the town. Von Trier wrote the part with Nicole in mind after he received word that she wanted to be in one of his films. He was surprised by her acceptance of the role, because Dogville, which is about as character-driven as a story can become, is closer to being an art-house film than a Hollywood blockbuster.

  Dogville was wrapped in plenty of time for Nicole to return to Los Angeles for the Academy Awards ceremony on March 24, 2002. Nicole was nominated for an Oscar in t
he best actress category for her role in Moulin Rouge, but, unlike the Golden Globes, which saw her nominated for both Moulin Rouge and The Others, the Academy Awards nominating committee overlooked the latter film. Moulin Rouge was also nominated in the best picture category and six additional minor categories, though Baz Luhrmann did not make the director’s list.

  The week before the awards ceremony, Nicole made her obligatory visit to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Wearing a tight-fitting black dress, she walked out onto the stage to a standing ovation, which seemed to make her even more nervous. She longs for public adoration, yet when she receives it, it always makes her feel uncomfortable, as if she didn’t really deserve it.

  Nicole talked about Moulin Rouge, about how Luhrmann first approached her to discuss the role—and later in the show Luhrmann joined her on stage to talk about the film from his vantage point—but the highlight of the interview was her revelation about her family’s penchant for gambling. She explained that she had just returned from a movie distributors’ exhibition in Las Vegas, where she had had a good time at the gaming tables.

  Leno asked her if she lost big money, to which she responded, “No, not very much. I’m actually like a little old woman when I gamble. I sit there and I put my glasses on and I watch the cards and I hate for anybody to talk to me. So, I’m not a lot of fun—and I have a limit and as soon as I hit the limit, you have to walk away. That’s how you win when you gamble. Yes, because gambling can be an addiction, so if you don’t allow it to be an addiction, you can actually win at it.”

  Nicole went on to explain that she was careful about gambling because members of her family had found it addictive. “I’ve been warned that I may have it in my blood—so I’m fighting it.”

  The Leno interview confirmed what was becoming increasingly apparent—namely, that despite her great beauty and charm, she was ill-at-ease in social situations. She performed well when she did question-and-answer interviews that focused on her movie projects, but when it came to chit-chat she had a difficult time keeping the conversation flowing with inane batter, the mainstay of all social interactions.

  When placed in social situations, such as free-ranging television interviews, she tended to use hot-button topics such as gambling addiction or trolls with big penises to attract attention. That was the biggest change in her life, not having Tom at her side to glide her through anxiety provoking situations.

  On the night of the Oscars, that became even more apparent when she and actress Renee Zellweger, an adoring Tom Cruise supporter, were corralled by a television interviewer outside the Kodak Theatre, the new, 3,300-seat home of the Oscars.

  When asked if they were sweating in their “fabulous dresses,” Nicole committed a Hollywood gaffe and glanced down at her armpits (she had on a bare-shoulder pink gown) and answered that she was indeed sweating.

  Nicole seemed very nervous and ill at ease, as if she might explode into a full-blown panic attack, the realization of which probably promoted the interviewer to address the remainder of his questions to a radiant Zellweger. It was a scenario that made Nicole’s supporters cringe because she seemed jittery and in a near panic as she watched Zellweger finish the interview.

  Inside the theater, Nicole settled down amid the elegant cherry-wood moldings and the walls lined with ornate opera boxes. She felt safe in the auditorium, where reporters could not rush her seat and ask her unwanted questions. Within seconds of sitting down, she was again glowing with regal self-confidence.

  Though she never let her smile drop, it turned out to be a disappointing night for both her and Luhrmann. In the best picture category, Moulin Rouge lost to director Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (Howard also won for best director) and Nicole lost to Halle Berry for her role in Monster’s Ball.

  Nicole kept smiling when presenter Russell Crowe gave the award to Berry, but she must have felt humiliated when Berry turned what was supposed to be a brief moment of glory into an emotional, second-dragging tribute to “every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance (to win an Oscar).”

  For Moulin Rouge to win no Oscars in the major categories (Luhrmann’s wife, Catherine Martin, won two Oscars for costume design and art direction) was a shock to Nicole, because in the weeks leading up to the event, writers had proclaimed her the sentimental favorite.

  Reuters news service had gushed one week before the ceremony, “If life was a Hollywood movie, Nicole Kidman would crown a year of personal woes and professional triumph by walking off into the sunset with her first Oscar. And the audience would stand up and cheer because when it comes to sympathy votes, Kidman’s already a winner.”

  The loss was a blow to Kidman, who had thought that if she ever won an Oscar it would be for Moulin Rouge. The news media was obviously rooting for her, as was the public, but neither had a vote in the proceedings. The Oscars are more about money than they are about popularity, unless, of course, the popularity is accompanied with money.

  Nicole could be forgiven if she thought that her poor showing at the Oscars was a product of her divorce from Tom. He was the all-American poster boy for establishment Hollywood, while she had a reputation for preferring the less glossy films produced and directed by Europeans and Australians. He made $20 million per film and she made $2 million per film. He was one of them, so when academy members cast their votes for Oscars, why would they express their support of his ex-wife?

  ~ ~ ~

  Whether it was a sign of her growing emotional maturity, or another symptom of her increasingly obsessive work habits, Nicole did not spend much time grieving over her loss of an Oscar. Instead, she jumped into another movie project.

  The Human Stain, which was directed by Robert Benton (with whom Nicole worked on Billy Bathgate) is about a classics professor named Coleman Silk (played by Anthony Hopkins) who has a secret affair with a much younger woman named Faunia Farley (played by Nicole). Based on the 2000 novel of the same title by author Philip Roth, the story centers on a colleague’s reconstruction of Silk’s illustrious career as an educator.

  For the first time since Eyes Wide Shut, Nicole consented to engage in raunchy, on-screen sex with Hopkins, who, at sixty-four, was nearly twice her age. The actor said that despite his age, he had no problems doing the sex scenes with Nicole. “After all, what can they do?’ he told reporters, “—put me in jail!”

  Most of The Human Stain was filmed in Canada, primarily in Montreal, so Nicole did not have to travel extensively during production. She didn’t discuss the film much during production, but that was probably because she was doing nude scenes reported to be as steamy as those she did in Eyes Wide Shut. Why would she refuse to do nude scenes without a body suit in The Hours and then do nude scenes in The Human Stain? With Nicole, one never knows, but it might have been due to the fact her character in The Hours was a lesbian and the sex scenes presumably were with another woman. Hopkins may have been old and wrinkled, but he was a male and that seems to have made a difference with Nicole.

  While Nicole worked on the film, Connor and Bella stayed with Tom, who was between projects. Interviewed during that time by a reporter from Time magazine, he stopped the conversation to take a telephone call from the children and then knelt close to the ground and whispered into the telephone so that the reporter could not hear.

  Later, asked by the reporter what he thought about a comment that Nicole made on the Late Show with David Letterman—she had held up her foot and told the host that she could wear heels again, eliciting loud laughter from the audience at Tom’s expense—he said he wasn’t offended by the comment, adding, “She always wore heels. Truly I like her in heels. That’s never been a problem for me.”

  Tom was surprised by the question, especially since Nicole’s comment had been made more than a year earlier; his divorce from Mimi had created a media buzz, but it had died down quickly. His divorce from Nicole, he now understood, was not going to simply vanish from the public eye.

  From Canada, Nicole flew to New York, where
she spent a couple of days with Baz Luhrmann (gossips wondered if the meeting meant that there was going to be a Moulin Rouge II) and visited the set of In the Cut, which starred Meg Ryan. Nicole was not a tourist; she was the producer of the film. Nicole had purchased the rights to the novel written by Susanna Moore six years earlier and had persuaded her long-time friend Jane Campion to be the director.

  Some people were surprised that Nicole asked Ryan to star in the film, considering their mutual connection to Russall Crowe (Ryan had dated him in 2001 and Nicole was linked to him after the breakup), but Nicole thought Ryan would be perfect for the part and Ryan, best known for her flare for chick-flicks, was flattered to be asked to star in an erotic thriller. Observers said the two women got along quite well.

  From New York, it was then on to Romania for Nicole, to begin work on yet another film—Cold Mountain, a Civil War-era film adapted from Charles Frazier’s best-selling novel of the same title, to be directed and written by Anthony Minghella, the Oscar-winning director of The English Patient. Nicole played the role of Ada, working opposite Jude Law, Renee Zellweger, Natalie Portman, and Donald Sutherland.

  Nicole arrived in Romania in early August, about a week late for production, but her tardy arrival didn’t matter because the remote village where they were to begin filming was hit by heavy rains and flooding, devastating large sections of the countryside. With her were seven-year-old Connor and a small army of bodyguards and trainers. They stayed in a villa with ten other actors.

  Cold Mountain is the story of a wounded Confederate soldier named Inman (played by Jude Law) and his attempt to return to the woman he loves, Ada. Tom Cruise was originally scheduled to play the part of Inman, but he withdrew from the project after separating from Nicole.

  “I feel so privileged to be in it,” Nicole told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Anthony Minghella is a very spiritual, very kind man, and that infiltrates his work. He’s also very smart, and he’s written a beautiful script. And the people have been lovely, they’ve really embraced the film crew, which doesn’t always happen. And the locations are just glorious—although it is very hot.”