Nicole Kidman: Lust and Trust
Nicole Kidman is weeping. As she stands on the cliffs high above the early morning waves of Australia’s Bondi Beach, Kidman’s startling blue eyes fill up with tears. She is talking about the death of Stanley Kubrick, the reclusive genius who directed Kidman and her husband, Tom Cruise, in the $65 million psychosexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick’s thirteenth and final film, due on July 16th, is said to contain scenes of unprecedented erotic intimacy only hinted at in the much-talked-about teaser trailer, which shows a nude Kidman, in front of a mirror, being passionately kissed and fondled by Cruise. No one speaks. The only sound is that of Chris Isaak singing “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing.”
Just how bad remains to be seen. Over the next several hours, Kidman will talk frankly about growing up red-headed and wild in Sydney, her marriage to Tom Cruise, their children and her own sexual evolution. But it’s the loss of the best friend and father confessor she found in Kubrick — the seventy-year-old director died of a heart attack on March 7th in his home near London, just days after the Cruises first saw the finished film — that Kidman returns to often. “Nic’s never lost someone so close to her,” says Cruise. “I’d been through it with my own father, and it really hits you hard, takes you up short.”
At her suggestion, my first day with Kidman begins very early indeed. We are to meet at dawn on Bondi Beach to watch the sun come up over the Pacific. So here I am, at 6 A.M., standing in the nearly deserted parking lot adjacent to the surf, watching a few ghostly figures run along the cement boardwalk. Per instructions, I’m searching for a blue BMW. Fifteen minutes later it pulls up and a tall (five feet ten), laughing redhead, whose luminescent white skin virtually glows in the mist, emerges.
She’s dressed casually in blue jeans, a black sweater and running shoes; there is little about Kidman to suggest the femme fatale of such films as To Die For, Batman Forever and Practical Magic, much less the bombshell whose soul- and skin-baring performance in the London and Broadway hit The Blue Room prompted one critic to dub her “theatrical Viagra.”
“I must say I wasn’t offended by the term,” says Kidman, who arrives today on less-seductive duty, her famous red ringlets tucked under a baseball cap. She’s ready for fun, especially at her own expense. “Driving here, I suddenly thought that saying, ‘Meet me in the middle of a parking lot at sunrise’ was maybe too vague,” she explains with a grin. “After all, it is the other side of the world.”
Sydney is also home to Kidman, the city where she grew up and has now returned with her husband and their two adopted children, Isabella Jane, 6, and Connor Anthony, 4, to live for a year while he films the sequel to Mission: Impossible and she stars in two Australian films: Jez Butterworth’s Birthday Girl and Baz Luhrmann’s musical Moulin Rouge.
Mr. and Mrs. Cruise are ensconced in a harbor-view home bought and decorated by Kidman. Nearby live her parents — Janelle, a nurse-educator, and Antony, a psychologist-biochemist and college professor who is the author of several self-help best sellers, including Managing Love and Hate. Kidman’s only sibling, younger sister Antonia, also lives in Sydney, where she is an entertainment reporter for the local Fox affiliate. Antonia is married to a sports agent and is the mother of five-month-old Lucia — a niece much adored by her aunt.
“I haven’t really lived here for nine years,” says Kidman, who is exceptionally close to her family. She had planned to be with Antonia during the birth of Lucia, but the baby arrived a week early. Still, says Kidman, “I was with Antonia by phone from New York the whole time.” Now she’s reveling in this year of being home. “I’d come back to visit, but to actually stay here, be able to go over to my mom’s place and have a cup of jasmine tea, which is what I used to do at eighteen … well, it’s great to be doing it again at thirty-two.”
All the Kidmans share her joy. “Last Sunday, Tom, Nicole, my husband and I went out on a boat, fishing for the day,” says Antonia. “Tom is such a good dad, so involved, so much enthusiasm. Nicole has a big life, but the way she deals with it, you don’t notice it’s big.”
Though Kidman’s life has changed dramatically since she left these shores for America at age twenty-two, somethings will always stay the same. Like her struggle for simplicity. Any special attention makes her visibly uncomfortable. And because she doesn’t act famous, she is not treated that way — at least in Australia. As she and I stroll from the boardwalk up into the cliffs overlooking the beach, no one bothers us. The occasional jogger, recognizing the lanky star, merely nods and lopes on.
But then, on Bondi Beach, Kidman is sanded gentry. “I came here all through my life,” she says, surveying the beach and its sprinkling of cafes. “You’d get fish and chips, eat them with Mom and Dad, and go for a swim in the afternoon. There’d be the shark alarm — you’d have to run out of the water — a loud blaring that is still so vivid.”
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