Nicole Kidman ... ...... Nicole Mary Kidman, AC (born 20 June 1967) is an Australian actress, singer, film producer,[1] and humanitarian. Kidman began her career in 1983, starring in various Australian film and television productions until her breakthrough in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Following several films over the early 1990s, she came to worldwide recognition for her performances in Days of Thunder (1990), Far and Away (1992), and Batman Forever (1995). Kidman followed this with other successful films in the late 1990s. It was her performance in the musical, Moulin Rouge! (2001) which earned Kidman her second Golden Globe Award and first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Her performance as Virginia Woolf the following year in the drama film The Hours (2002) received critical acclaim and earned Kidman the Academy Award for Best Actress. Kidman's other notable films include To Die For (1995), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Cold Mountain (2003), The Interpreter (2005), and Australia (2008). Her performance in 2010's Rabbit Hole (which she also produced) earned Kidman further accolades including a subsequent Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Kidman has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF since 1994[2] and for UNIFEM since 2006.[3] Kidman's work has earned her a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, three Golden Globe Awards, one BAFTA, and an Academy Award. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civilian honor,[4] and was also the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry.[5] As a result of being born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship in Australia and the United States.[6] Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her parents were in the United States on educational visas at the time. Kidman can thus claim both U.S. and Australian citizenship.[7] Her father, Dr. Antony David Kidman, is a biochemist, clinical psychologist, and author, with an office in Lane Cove, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.[8][9] Her mother, Janelle Ann (née Glenny), is a nursing instructor who edits her husband's books and was a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby. Kidman's ancestry includes Scottish and Irish.[10] At the time of Kidman's birth in 1967, her father was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He soon after became a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. Opposed to the War in Vietnam, which was causing social unrest in both Australia and the United States, Kidman's parents participated in anti-war protests while they were living in Washington, DC.[11] The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four and her parents now live on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia Kidman, a journalist and TV presenter. Kidman attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls' High School. She was enrolled in ballet at three and showed her natural talent for acting in her primary and high school years.[12] Kidman revealed she was timid as a child, saying, "I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don’t like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don’t like going to a party by myself".[13] In 1984, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which caused Kidman to temporarily halt her education and help provide for the family by working as a massage therapist at age 17.[12] She studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Victoria, and at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney, with actress and friend Naomi Watts who had attended the same high school as she did.[12][14] This was followed by attending the Australian Theatre for Young People.[12] Here she took up drama, mime and performing in her teens, finding acting to be a refuge. Due to her fair skin and naturally red hair, the Australian sun forced the young Kidman to rehearse in halls of the theatre. A regular at the Phillip Street Theatre, she received both encouragement and praise to pursue acting full-time.[15] In 1983, aged 16, Kidman made her film debut in the Australian holiday season favourite, Bush Christmas.[15] By the end of 1983, she had a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and began gaining popularity in the mid-1980s after appearing in several film roles, including BMX Bandits, Watch the Shadows Dance, and the romantic comedy Windrider (1986), which earned Kidman attention due to her racy scenes. Also during the decade, she appeared in several Australian productions, including the soap opera A Country Practice and the miniseries Vietnam (1986). She also made guest appearances on Australian television programs and TV movies. She also appeared in Sesame Street. In 1988, Kidman appeared in Emerald City, based on the play of the same name. The Australian film earned her an Australian Film Institute for Best Supporting Actress. After appearing in the Australian miniseries Bangkok Hilton, Kidman starred in Dead Calm (1989) as Rae Ingram, playing the wife of a naval officer. The thriller garnered strong reviews and brought Kidman to international recognition; Variety commented: "Throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the character of Rae real tenacity and energy."[16] Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together."[17] She moved on to star alongside her then-boyfriend and future husband, Tom Cruise, in the 1990 auto racing film Days of Thunder, playing a young doctor who falls in love with a NASCAR driver. This was Kidman's American debut and was among the highest-grossing films of the year.[18] In 1991, she co-starred with former classmate and friend Naomi Watts and Thandie Newton in the independent film Flirting. Kidman and Watts portrayed two high school girls in this coming of age story, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film.[19] That same year, her work in the film Billy Bathgate earned Kidman her first Golden Globe Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. The New York Times, in its film review, called her "a beauty with, it seems, a sense of humor".[20] The following year, she and Cruise re-teamed for Ron Howard's Irish epic Far and Away (1992), which was a modest critical[21][22] and commercial[23] success. In 1993, she starred in My Life opposite Michael Keaton and the thriller, Malice opposite Alec Baldwin. In 1995, Kidman appeared in her highest-grossing live-action film as of 2011,[24] playing Dr. Chase Meridian, the damsel in distress, in the superhero film Batman Forever, opposite Val Kilmer as the film's title character. That same year Kidman appeared in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed To Die For, earning praise and another Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto.[25][26] Kidman next appeared in The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the novel the same name, alongside, Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker. The following year she appeared in the action-thriller The Peacemaker (1997) as White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly, opposite George Clooney. The film received mixed reviews but grossed some $110,000,000 worldwide.[27][28] That same year she appeared opposite Sandra Bullock in the poorly received fantasy Practical Magic as a modern-day witch.[29] Kidman returned to her work on stage the same year in the David Hare play The Blue Room, which opened in London. In 1999, Kidman reunited with then husband, Tom Cruise, to portray a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut, the final film of Stanley Kubrick. The film opened to generally positive reviews but was subject to censorship controversies due to the explicit nature of its sex scenes.[30] The film received further attention following Kubrick's death shortly before its release. After brief hiatus and a highly publicized divorce from Cruise,[31] Kidman returned to the screen to play a mail-order bride in the British-American drama Birthday Girl. In 2001, Kidman appeared in two of her most critically and commercially successful films. In the first she played the cabaret actress and courtesan Satine in Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge!, opposite Ewan McGregor. Subsequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award, for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, as well as other acting awards. She also received her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress. Also in 2001, she had a well-received starring role in Alejandro Amenábar's Spanish horror film The Others as Grace Stewart. Grossing over $210,947,037 worldwide, the film also earned several Goya Awards award nominations, including a Best Actress nomination for Kidman. Additionally she received her second BAFTA and fifth Golden Globe nominations.[citation needed] In 2003, Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, which also featured Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. Kidman wore prosthetics that were applied to her nose making her almost unrecognisable playing the author during her time in 1920s England, and her bouts with depression and mental illness while trying to write her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The film earned positive notices and several nominations, including for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The New York Times wrote that, "Kidman tunnels like a ferret into the soul of a woman besieged by excruciating bouts of mental illness. As you watch her wrestle with the demon of depression, it is as if its torment has never been shown on the screen before. Directing her desperate, furious stare into the void, her eyes not really focusing, Ms. Kidman, in a performance of astounding bravery, evokes the savage inner war waged by a brilliant mind against a system of faulty wiring that transmits a searing, crazy static into her brain".[32] Kidman won numerous critics' awards, including her first BAFTA, third Golden Globe, and the Academy Award for Best Actress. As the first Australian actress to win an Academy Award, Kidman made a teary acceptance speech about the importance of art, even during times of war, saying, "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honour that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld."[33] Following her Oscar win, Kidman appeared in three very different films in 2003. The first, a leading role in Dogville, by Danish director Lars von Trier, was an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. The second was an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain, opposite Anthony Hopkins. Her third film, Anthony Minghella's war drama Cold Mountain, was a critical and commercial success. Kidman appeared opposite Jude Law and Renée Zellweger, playing Southerner Ada Monroe, who is in love with Law's character and separated by the Civil War. TIME magazine wrote, "Kidman takes strength from Ada's plight and grows steadily, literally luminous. Her sculptural pallor gives way to warm radiance in the firelight".[34] The film garnered several award nominations and wins for its actors; Kidman received her sixth Golden Globe nomination at the 61st Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress. In 2004 she appeared in the film, Birth, which received controversy over a scene in which Kidman shares a bath with her co-star, 10-year old Cameron Bright. At a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, Kidman addressed the controversy saying, "It wasn't that I wanted to make a film where I kiss a 10-year-old boy. I wanted to make a film where you understand love".[35] Though the film received negative to mixed reviews, Kidman earned her seventh Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress – Motion Picture. That same year she appeared in the black comedy-science-fiction film The Stepford Wives, a remake of the 1975 film of the same name. Kidman appeared in the lead role as Joanna Eberhart, a successful producer. The film, directed by Frank Oz, was critically panned and a commercial failure. The following year, Kidman appeared opposite Sean Penn in the Sydney Pollack thriller The Interpreter, playing UN translator Silvia Broome. Also that year she starred in Bewitched, based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name, opposite Will Ferrell. Both Kidman and Ferrell earned that year's Razzie Award for "Worst Screen Couple". Neither film fared well in the United States, with box office sales falling well short of the production costs, but both films fared well internationally.[36][37] In conjunction with her success in the film industry, Kidman became the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume brand. She starred in a campaign of television and print ads with Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann, to promote the fragrance during the holiday seasons of 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned US$12million for the three-minute advert.[38] During this time, Kidman was also listed as the 45th Most Powerful Celebrity on the 2005 Forbes Celebrity 100 List. She made a reported US$14.5 million in 2004–2005. On People magazine's list of 2005's highest paid actresses, Kidman was second behind Julia Roberts, with US$16–17 million per-film price tag.[39] Nintendo in 2007 announced that Kidman would be the new face of Nintendo's advertising campaign for the Nintendo DS game More Brain Training in its European market.[40] Kidman portrayed photographer Diane Arbus in the biography Fur (2006), opposite Robert Downey Jr.. Though the film was released to mixed reviews, both Kidman and Downey Jr. received praise for their performances. She also lent her voice to the animated film Happy Feet (2006), which grossed over US$384 million worldwide. In 2007, she starred in the science-fiction movie The Invasion directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, a remake of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers that proved a critical and commercial failure. She also played opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding, released to positive reviews and earning Kidman a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy. She then starred in the commercially successful fantasy-adventure, The Golden Compass (2007), playing the villainous Marisa Coulter. In 2008, she reunited with Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann in the Australian period film Australia, set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II. Kidman played opposite Hugh Jackman as an Englishwoman feeling overwhelmed by the continent. Despite the film's mixed reviews, the acting was praised and the movie was a box office success worldwide.[41] Kidman was originally set to star in the post-World War II German drama, The Reader, working with previous collaborators Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, but due to her pregnancy prior to filming she had to back out.[42] The role went to Kate Winslet, who ultimately won the Oscar for Best Actress, which Kidman presented to her during the 81st Academy Awards. Kidman appeared in the 2009 Rob Marshall musical Nine, portraying the Federico Fellini-like character's muse, Claudia Jenssen. She was featured alongside fellow Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz and Sophia Loren. Kidman's, whose screen time was brief compared to the other actresses, performed the musical number "Unusual Way" alongside Day-Lewis. Although the film was released to mixed reviews, it received several Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and earned Kidman a third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as part of the Outstanding Cast. Also in 2009, Kidman was the face of an international Schweppes advertisement.[43] In 2010, she starred with Aaron Eckhart in the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole, for which she vacated her role in the Woody Allen picture You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger.[44] She lent her voice to a promotional video that Australia used to support its bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The five-minute video was broadcast at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.[45] TV Guide reported in 2008 that Kidman will star in The Danish Girl, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name, playing Lili Elbe, the world's first postoperative transsexual.[46] Screen Daily reported that shooting would begin in Germany in July 2011.[47] However the project has been delayed following the exit of the director, Lasse Hallström and Kidman's co-star Rachel Weisz.[48] In 2009, Variety said that she would produce and star in a film adaptation of the Chris Cleave novel Little Bee, in association with BBC Films.[49][50] In June 2010, TV Guide announced that Kidman and Clive Owen will star in an HBO film about Ernest Hemingway and his relationship with Martha Gellhorn. entitled Hemingway & Gellhorn. The film, directed by Philip Kaufman,[51] began shooting in March 2011, with an air date scheduled for 2012.[52] She also stars alongside Nicolas Cage in director Joel Schumacher's action-thriller Trespass, with the stars playing a married couple taken hostage.[53] On 17 September 2010, ContactMusic. com said Kidman will return to Broadway to portray Alexandra Del Lago in David Cromer's revival of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, with Scott Rudin producing[54] On 30 August 2011 Cromer spoke to the The New York Times and explained that the production will not meet its original fall 2011 revival date but that it remains an active project.[55] In February 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported Kidman is in talks to join the cast of Park Chan Wook's Stoker.[56] In May 2011 it was reported that Kidman would star and produce in Spectre, a supernatural thriller directed by James Wan. The film closed major territory deals at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[57] In June Kidman was cast in Lee Daniels' upcoming adaptation of the Pete Dexter novel, The Paperboy[58] and began filming the thriller on 1 August 2011.[59] On 2 November 2011, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Kidman is attached to star in My Wild Life, a Philip Noyce-directed biopic of conservationist, Daphne Sheldrick. Production for the project is scheduled for the first quarter of 2012.[60] In April 2012, various sources, including Variety, announced that Kidman was in talks to star in upcoming Grace Kelly biopic Grace of Monaco. The film will focus on the 1962 crisis, in which Charles de Gaulle blockaded the tiny principality, angered by Monaco's status as a tax haven for wealthy French subjects.[61] Singing Her collaboration with Ewan McGregor on "Come What May" peaked at No.27 in the UK Singles Chart.[62] Later she collaborated with Robbie Williams on "Somethin' Stupid", a cover of Williams' swing covers album Swing When You're Winning. It peaked at No.8 in the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart, and at No.1 for three weeks in the UK.[63] In 2006, while voicing a role in the animated movie Happy Feet, she provided vocals for Norma Jean's "heartsong", a slightly altered version of "Kiss" by Prince.[citation needed] Kidman sang in Rob Marshall's movie musical Nine. Kidman has been married twice, first to actor Tom Cruise, and then to singer Keith Urban. She has an adopted son and daughter with Cruise, as well as two biological daughters with Urban. She met Cruise in November 1989 on the set of their 1990 movie Days of Thunder. Kidman and Cruise were married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado. The couple adopted a daughter, Isabella Jane (born 22 December 1992),[64] and a son, Connor Anthony (born 17 January 1995).[64] On February 5, 2001, the couple's spokesperson announced their separation.[65] Cruise filed for divorce two days later, and the marriage was dissolved in August of that year, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences.[66] Kidman was three months pregnant at the time; shortly afterward, she suffered a miscarriage.[67] In Marie Claire, Kidman said she had an ectopic pregnancy early in their marriage.[68] In the June 2006 Ladies' Home Journal, she said she still loved Cruise: "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.[69] Prior to marrying Cruise, Kidman cohabited with Australian stage actor Marcus Graham in the late 1980s.[70] In the mid-1980s, Kidman dated her Windrider co-star Tom Burlinson,[71][72] with whom she lived with on and off for three years, according to biographer Andrew Morton.[73] She dated musician Lenny Kravitz from 2003 to 2004.[74] Robbie Williams stated that he had a short romance with Kidman on her yacht during the summer of 2004. In a 2007 interview, Kidman revealed that she was secretly engaged to someone between her marriages to Cruise and Urban, but did not identify to whom.[75] Kidman met her second husband, New Zealand country singer Keith Urban, at G'Day LA, an event honouring Australians, in January 2005. They married on 25 June 2006, at Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney.[76][77] They maintain homes in Sydney, Sutton Forest (New South Wales, Australia), Los Angeles,[78] and Nashville (Tennessee, USA).[79] The couple's daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, was born on 7 July 2008, in Nashville.[80] Kidman's father said the daughter's middle name was after Urban's late grandmother, Rose.[81] On 28 December 2010, Kidman and Urban welcomed his second daughter and her third daughter, Faith Margaret Kidman Urban, via gestational carrier[82] at Nashville's Centennial Women's Hospital. The child is biologically Kidman and Urban's. Faith's middle name is after Kidman's late grandmother.[83][84] Kidman is a practicing Roman Catholic.[85] She attended Mary Mackillop Chapel in North Sydney. Following criticism of The Golden Compass by Catholic leaders[86] as anti-Catholic,[87] Kidman told Entertainment Weekly that "the Catholic Church is part of her 'essence'", and that her religious beliefs would prevent her from taking a role in a film she perceives as anti-Catholic.[88] During her divorce from Tom Cruise, she stated that she did not want their children raised as Scientologists.[89] She has been reluctant to discuss Scientology since her divorce.[90] Kidman has donated to U.S. Democratic party candidates.[91] In 2002, Kidman first appeared on the Australian rich list published annually in the Business Review Weekly with an estimated net worth of A$122 million.[92] In the 2011 published list, Kidman's wealth was estimated at A$304 million, down from A$329 million in 2010.[93] Kidman has raised money for, and drawn attention to, disadvantaged children around the world. In 1994, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF,[2] and in 2004, she was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the United Nations.[citation needed] Kidman joined the Little Tee Campaign for breast cancer care to design T-shirts or vests to raise money to fight the disease;[94] motivated by her mother's own battle with breast cancer in 1984.[95] On Australia Day 2006, Kidman received Australia's highest civilian honor when she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. The citation acknowledged Kidman's service to the performing arts as an acclaimed motion picture performer, to health care through contributions to improve medical treatment for women and children and advocacy for cancer research, to youth as a principal supporter of young performing artists, and to humanitarian causes in Australia and internationally.[96] Kidman was appointed goodwill ambassador of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in 2006.[2] In this capacity, Kidman has addressed international audiences at UN events, raised awareness through the media and testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs to support the International Violence against Women Act. Kidman visited Kosovo in 2006 to learn about women's experiences of conflict and UNIFEM's support efforts. She is the international spokesperson for UNIFEM's Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women initiative.[97] Kidman and the UNIFEM executive director presented over five million signatures collected during the first phase of this to the UN Secretary-General on 25 November 2008.[98] In the beginning of 2009, Kidman appeared in a series of postage stamps featuring Australian actors. She, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, and Cate Blanchett each appear twice in the series: once as themselves and once as their Academy Award-winning character.[99] On 8 January 2010, Kidman, alongside Nancy Pelosi, Joan Chen and Joe Torre, attended the ceremony to help Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new international center located in the Presidio of San Francisco.[100][101]