So far Nicole Kidman is famous mostly for being married to Tom Cruise. But just wait. At 26, time is on her side--and she just got the plum role in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady. Here she talks about not wanting Tom on her sets, about not being cold and aloof, and about not using a body double.
_______________________________
"Do you think I should try and find a new Elvis and remake Viva Las Vegas?" Nicole Kidman wonders, pouting her scarlet lips, tossing back her mane of red hair and looking, in a sinuous black number, like such a '60s sex kitten that I wonder why I hadn't detected the Ann-Margret itching to burst out of the Samantha Eggar all along. "Immediately," I answer, "and if Tom won't be your Elvis, I will." Kidman breaks up laughing, then, waving bye-bye for now, sidles, barefoot, back under the lights for a few more photos. I've been watching her work the camera like mad--acting buoyant and loose while cranking up the heat in a way that critics have rarely accused her of doing in such movies as Days of Thunder, Far and Away, Billy Bathgate, Malice and My Life.
I recall how Kidman's directors Phillip Noyce, Ron Howard, Robert Benton, Bruce Joel Rubin and Harold Becker invariably harp on one theme: Not only is Nicole Kidman nice, but she is going to be a big star. Respect, she's got. Heck, Jane Campion, on whom critics lavished praise for The Piano, just handpicked Kidman to star in the prestigious movie version of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady with Daniel Day-Lewis and William Hurt.
Having married Tom Cruise in 1990--after Days of Thunder and before Far and Away--Kidman has gotten as much flak as respect. She's been gossiped about. Big time. You know, stuff like she only nabs the big roles because of him. Or, they're a pair of control freaks who use Scientology methods to manipulate the press and to bully studios. Or, he is fanatically protective of her and turns up on her movie sets to make certain her love scenes stay within certain limits. And even juicier stuff.
Who knows whether good looks, acting chops, thoroughgoing professionalism and a zesty personal life will conspire to vault Kidman into the small circle of leading ladies who'll stick around for the long haul? I take a look at the determined set of her jaw and the cornflower blue eyes that gaze out with utter directness, and I feel the jaunty warmth of her handshake, and I think: Not only is she likable, but she strikes me as someone whom I can ask just about anything. So, I do.
NICOLE KIDMAN: [Laughing, looking at my sheaf of notes] What the hell is that, a background report? You've done your detective work.
STEPHEN REBELLO: Oh, yeah, I've really got the goods on you. Let's start by kicking around this Young Hollywood notion. Being 26, you're a part of that group, but do you see yourself that way?
A: It seems kind of foreign to me. I don't think there is enough "Young Hollywood." By that I mean young actors that are coming up. I don't know if that's because they're not writing enough roles for us or not, but I tell you, it's rare that you get to play your age on-screen. I tend to play characters who are past 30. I have to do that because most of the actors who are working are in that age group. Producers and studios are not interested at the moment in doing films with the younger guys.
Q: Unless it's with Tom Cruise. But, if you take it back a few decades, there used to be 20 actors that you could possibly have been paired with: William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper.
A: Exactly. It seems that every decade, there's less and less. Maybe that means women have to rise higher and say, "Okay, write films for us" or else we have to start writing the projects ourselves. There were big audiences for a Bette Davis movie or a Barbara Stanwyck movie, and there are only certain women now who will draw audiences like that.
Q: On the level of Tom Cruise?
A: Julia Roberts can.
Q: Does it bug you that Tom Cruise makes, like, $12 million a movie when you make much less?
A: We all get paid so much money that to sit here and complain that I'm not getting as much as him ... I mean, in Australia, you don't get paid anywhere near what you get paid here. Even on a small film here, it's bigger than what you'd get on the biggest film of your career there. But I'm willing to do Portrait of a Lady for Jane Campion for practically nothing because, otherwise, you'll never grow as an actor.
Q: We'll talk about that movie some more later. But, again on the Young Hollywood theme, River Phoenix's death was a devastating loss for a lot of people. How much hard living do you see among your peers?
A: I'm not aware of it. Yeah, I go out to clubs and all, and maybe I'm walking around with rose-colored glasses, but I don't see that side of things. It was a real shock to hear about River.
Q: Have you ever really been part of the Hollywood club scene?
A: A lot of these people grew up knowing each other. But I came in from another country and was suddenly, sort of, married to Tom within a year. I was very sheltered, I suppose you'd say.
Q: Is there a casting couch in Australia?
A: I worked from 14 onwards and never encountered it. But friends of mine have. I came to the States after Dead Calm. I was 21 and really lucky, because that film was seen on an international level. When you're in the higher echelon, working with great directors and smart people, it doesn't happen. But I have actress friends who are in their 20s, really struggling, and it happens to them. It pisses me off when they tell me stories.
Q: Of all the actors trying to progress beyond the "hot young newcomer" stage to the "worldwide movie star" stage, Tom Cruise has really done it.
A: Absolutely. The thing that all of us can learn from Tom is to work with great people. That's the key. Don't delude yourself by saying, "Well, I'm going to do this so-so movie, but I'm going to be the star of it." The times Tom has been brilliant are the times when he's worked with great directors. It makes you salivate to look at the list of directors he's worked with.
Q: He also seems to handle the fan adulation pretty adroitly.
A: I'll admit I am more nervous since the baby, but not to the extent where we use bodyguards or anything. Tom isn't an action hero in movies, nor someone who does a lot of killing. That attracts different kinds of fans and energy. I don't remember a time when we've been hassled by the public. People always say, "How do you manage to just lead your lives?" and for us, it's not a big deal. When we were in New Orleans, we went to see the Neville Brothers at Tipitina's, but people came up and were so friendly. When I hear stories about other people, I wonder whether there's something we're not aware of. I heard what Sharon Stone told you about the hassles she has, but I just don't have that kind of magnetism. [Laughing] I don't drive men over the edge like that.
Q: Surely there are things you have to think twice about before doing?
A: I was going to say "skating in Central Park," but we do that. You can do what you want. I remember, though, it was just the two of us and it was nine o'clock at night in New York and we said, "Let's go skating." Not being from New York and walking through the park at night, I did have a moment of, "Uhhhhhh, what are we doing????" But we skated for an hour.
Q: What would you do to someone who really pushed you too far?
A: Kick him in the balls and push in his eyeballs [laughing].
Q: What are some things you didn't know before you came into the orbit of Tom Cruise?
A: That people were so interested in him. That anything is possible. That, despite how terrible people tell you the business is, there are actually amazing people with incredible minds you can meet. That it all can be fun. And that you can still lead a normal life.
Q: What are some things you swore you'd never do before knowing Tom?
A: Get married. Live with someone. Have kids. I considered getting married, but not living with the person. I actually posed that possibility to a guy who I was going to get engaged to, and he said, "I'm not calling up my wife for a date." I come from a family where my parents are together, but I really believed that marriage couldn't last. So, I thought, either don't do it or, if you do it for fun, make sure you don't get trapped. I was going to be like my idol Katharine Hepburn, who said you couldn't have a career and a marriage. Then, I thought, "Fuck it, I'm going to be happy."
Q: How can you and Tom always get to each other?
A: Sports. Take squash. I taught him. Three months later, he's beating me. Chess? Backgammon? He trounces me. It's like, "Give me a break."
Q: What's your take on your own sexual vibe?
A: It changes all the time. It's inconceivable to me that I'd be seen as a sex symbol, and it's certainly not something that I choose to do. But, it's an important element in people's lives and sometimes, that's something you want to explore. In My Life, you wouldn't say that that was a sexual role. In Portrait of a Lady, I'm dealing with a woman who is so frustrated sexually that she can't allow any of it out. I wouldn't know what sexual tone I give out consistently. But I'm certainly not frightened of exploring it.
Q: You and Tom seem so driven and ambitious.
A: If I wasn't with someone that was like that, I'd go crazy. I also believe in being individuals. People ask, "Do you help with each other's film choices?" Absolutely not. You don't want to be working four or five months flat out on a film because your husband or wife said, "Why don't you do this movie? You'd be great in it." You'd hate them for it if it was terrible. They recently offered us the chance to be on the cover of Vogue together, saying, "You'd be the first couple ever on our cover." We've never even done a photo shoot together. The Vogue cover was not of interest, particularly for me because then it looks like I'm riding on his coattails. I'm over-defensive about it. Which is why we haven't done a movie together since Far and Away.
Q: Neither of the movies you've done together was a huge box-office hit. What if it turns out that audiences don't want to see you together?
A: Okay, fine. But you also don't make movies for just what other people want. Anything is possible in this industry. You can defy the norm. You can be the most down in the dumps actor who hasn't had work for so long and suddenly one film turns it around. As an actor, when you see a 70-year-old actor, someone who's been up and down and all over the place, not only survive but deliver a great performance, something goes, "Good on you!"
Q: Would you be further along or less far along in your career if it weren't for Tom?
A: You can get very lazy when you're married. You can sit back, like, things are fine. I don't need to make an effort. One day, though, I just said to myself: "What are you doing? Get your act together." Which is why I did Malice and My Life back to back. And why I did "Saturday Night Live" even though I was terrified, because I have got to push myself now. That's what I did in Australia and that's what I have to do now.
Q: The higher the profile you and Tom present, the more rumors there are about both of you.
A: Shoot 'em at me.
Q: Was Tom so bent out of shape about the sexier stuff in Billy Bathgate that he showed up on the set and put the screws to Disney to tone them down?
A: [Shaking her head "no"] Uh-uh. I'm not the kind of person who would allow that, anyway. He was best friends with Dustin Hoffman at that time and they're still very close. He showed up on the set, occasionally, and was hanging out with Dustin, but not when we were doing those kinds of scenes. On Malice, Tom also occasionally came by. But, he's such a strong force that I don't like to have him on the set. It distracts me and it's bad for the other actors. You can't have your spouse there twiddling his or her thumbs, watching. It makes me too self-conscious.
Q: When Mimi Rogers gibes in Playboy that Tom was thinking about becoming a monk...
A: Which she later said she was being facetious about. I don't know what she meant, but I can assure you my husband's no monk. [Laughing] He's the best lover I've ever had, so I don't know what was wrong with her. Now, I haven't ever met Mimi, so I haven't been able to discuss that with her. She and Tom are not enemies, they've talked. I'm pretty sure that she was being tongue in cheek. You've met Tom, did you believe it when she said that?
Q: Well, I don't know what goes on in Tom Cruise's bedroom.
A: Stephen! He's a very sexual guy. I don't know what was going on with them, and I'm really not that interested because, you know, you just move on. See, my relationships with my ex-boyfriends are great. I had a three-year relationship and a one-year relationship.
Q: Were any of those with actors before?
A: [Rolling her eyes, laughing] Yeah, one of those. And with a director once. And a writer once. Mainly people in the industry, and not by choice, because I can remember being desperate to meet, like, a lawyer. Anybody who wasn't in the industry, someone straight who works a nine-to-five job. [But] it's easier to be with someone who's in the industry or at least has an interest in what you're doing.
Q: Let's talk about the Scientology rumors. Like the widely-reported stories that you both demanded expensive voice recording equipment on Far and Away.
A: Absolute bullshit.
Q: Scientologist bosses guide and advise your careers.
A: Absolute bullshit.
Q: Are you as deeply into Scientology as Tom is?
A: He discusses it publicly, I don't.
Q: Did your wedding party celebration feature the mandatory table of high-ranking Scientologists?
A: Absolute bullshit. There is so much crap written in relation to both of us. No one is going to tell me what to do. If someone says, "You can't do this or that," that only makes me want to do it more. I don't know where people get this stuff. I feel it's their problem and not ours. But I can assure you, it's not true! Life's hard enough as it is without having everyone around you trashing you. In my personal life, I pride myself on things like being a loyal friend. I've got school friends that I've been friends with since I was eight years old. All women. I'm a woman's woman. I've always loved men, love the company of men, but if I'm in a room, I gravitate towards the women.
Q: Have you ever had a relationship with a woman?
A: No, no.
Q: Where do you come out on this whole flap about Tom Cruise being cast in Interview With the Vampire?
A: He'll give his whole side of it when he does his interviews. But moviemaking is about taking risks. Anyway, aren't actors usually praised for trying to do something that they're physically unlike? Or for something unlike anything they've tried before? Tom's been criticized for being the all-American, for not taking risks. So, now he's doing something that he's completely removed from and everyone's going, "He shouldn't be allowed to do that." All I know is that he's working really hard on it. It's tough when a book has such a cult following, but I say, good on him for trying.
Q: Do the homoerotic aspects of the project unsettle you, as in, Tom Cruise should not, for his career's sake, do this?
A: Not at all. I think it's great. I think it's something that's very important in society. I say explore it.
Q: That brings me to another rumor that chases Tom, that he's gay.
A: That he's gay? Really? Well, ummm, he's not gay in my knowledge. You'll have to ask him that question.
Q: I found it odd that you once said, "Officially, we will be on our honeymoon for the rest of our lives."
A: He said that. I loved that. "Officially" came from the question, the way it was thrown. Unofficially, my idea is that you have to keep working at it, making it fun. You have to keep trying to impress each other.
Q: Are you both control junkies?
A: I can't answer for Tom, but, in his personal life, no he isn't. Professionally, neither. Am I? No. You drive yourself crazy trying to control things. You can never control it. I've learned that not everyone is going to like you. You can only go on doing things that you feel happy with.
Q: What's the special vibe between you two?
A: We met during the audition process for Days of Thunder and there was just a connection. There was just something like, "God, I feel like I know you." His humor is so on the same vibe as mine. The thing that people don't know about Tom is that he's so funny. When he's in a totally relaxed mode, he's hysterical. He has a great command of his body. He's a great dancer. I would love for us to do something where you would really see those sides of him. He's really loose and funny.
Q: You're taller than Tom. Did you ever downplay your height around him?
A: I went in for the Days of Thunder audition thinking, "He's not going to be comfortable playing opposite a girl who's taller than him." I was really lucky. There are certain men who can deal with tall women and certain men who can't. The ones who can are the only ones I want to know. I wear three-inch heels. I love it that Geena Davis is six foot, Sigourney Weaver is five-eleven and Daryl Hannah is five-ten. When I was growing up, there were none of those role models.
Q: Were you terribly self-conscious about your height?
A: Guys weren't interested in me because I wasn't short and curvy and tan-skinned and blonde. I was five-foot-ten at 13 years old. It's character-building when you're not the pretty little girl at school about whom everyone says, "Oh, isn't she gorgeous." I had to learn to survive on other things.
Q: Who turned you on as a kid?
A: Jimmy Dean. Every young girl sees Rebel Without a Cause and falls in love with him. And Brando. I saw A Streetcar Named Desire and he leaped off the screen. I did the play at school and I saw the movie because of that. And that first scene of him... my GOD! Of course, all the guys that I hung out with were walking around trying to be Jimmy Dean or Marlon Brando. Cheap imitations!
Q: Tell me about the first naked man you saw and how it made you feel.
A: I was doing a play. I was 14 and doing Wedekind's Spring Awakening, which is based upon sexual repression in the late 1800s. We had to share the dressing room with boys who were 15, 16 and we had to change in front of each other. The boys had a naked scene where they whipped each other with towels and that's how I first saw a guy naked. It was thrilling! All of us girls would peek at them through holes, laughing. Every night, I looked forward to going to work. I also had a scene in petticoats where I was begging this boy to beat me. It was amazing for me to be dealing with all that stuff at that age.
Q: Did fame spur you on? Does it now?
A: In Australia, there isn't really "fame." It's more that you're a working actor. I wasn't brought up seeing a lot of American films and thinking that this was where it's at. Acting, theater--that was a place where I could go and just be somebody else. I was like, "I hate who I am. I hate how I look. I hate how I feel with all these hormones racing through my body. Where the hell am I?"
Q: What was it like for you at home?
A: Let me explain it this way: I take our little girl to the set with me. People say all the time, "Oh, it's terrible to be moved around so much." I would have loved it as a child. I was in one place most of the time until I was 17. As soon as I was 17, I left the country and backpacked across Europe. It was like a rebellion. I rebelled wildly.
Q: How wildly?
A: At 17, I announced, "I'm getting on a plane to Amsterdam." I met this Dutch guy and went and lived there. Amsterdam is the kind of city where... [laughing] well, you get quite an education in two weeks. As soon as I got there, I said to him, "I've made this decision. We can sleep in the same bed, but I'd just like to be friends." [Laughing] Try saying that to a guy! We were together on and off for six months, with me reiterating every month, "I want to be friends." My parents are pretty cool. Things were never bad with them, I just said, "I'm doing this. See you later." But it was a big deal because I was so close to my mother.
Q: You cross paths with women like Meg Ryan, Demi Moore and Michelle Pfeiffer often when it comes to going up for roles, don't you?
A: Yeah, and they always get them [laughing].
Q: I said this before, but you really strike me as very ambitious.
A: [Laughing] Stop it. Isn't ambition considered a dirty word? I'm not ambitious in a ruthless way where, if I hear another girl got the role, I'll go, "Fuck her," and call the director. I just think if one project doesn't work out, something else will. At the moment, yeah, I lose out on roles to certain actresses, but I am about to do Jane Campion's movie, which is, to me, a fantastic role. And I didn't have to battle any other actress for that because Jane just chose me.
Q: You mean you didn't lift a finger?
A: No, no. I had to call and call and call her. I really pursued it. I was aware that she was going to do it as a play and I wanted to do it with her. When she said, "I'm going to do it as a movie," I said, "Would you please consider me?" She told me she'd been wanting to work with me. I met her when I was 14. I was cast in a school movie that she was doing and my school exams were coming up. I had to pull out. I was in my parents' house and found the diaries that I had kept from age 12 all the way through and I found this postcard from Jane saying, "I think you made the right decision and I hope one day we will work together. Be careful with what you do, because you have real potential."
Q: What haven't you gotten a shot at that you were panting over?
A: There's a lot of things you would have loved to have gotten a shot at, but they get offered to those four actresses that usually get offered everything and the rest trickles on down. That doesn't happen absolutely one hundred percent, like with Portrait of a Lady. But, let's see, I wasn't even in the United States, but I read Thelma & Louise, and would have loved to have done it. I read The Silence of the Lambs and went, "Oh, wow." I would love to have done Sleepless in Seattle. Meg was great in it, perfect casting. I found out about it too late. I didn't read the script, but I read the book Mary Reilly and would have loved to have done that. I wanted to do The Hudsucker Proxy. I love the Coen brothers. They didn't ask me. Getting rejected is not fun. But I believe in fate, really. I sent in an audition tape for Ghost and didn't get it, but [Ghost screenwriter] Bruce Joel Rubin cast me in My Life a few years later.
Q: I'd love to see what you could do with a smart, daft, Carole Lombard, Hepburn-type role.
A: And I'm never considered that way. What I come up against all the time is: "She's too cold and too aloof." I'd never choose those words to describe myself. In fact, I'm over-emotional in my personal life. Too worried. Too sensitive. To the extent where it drives everyone else crazy.
Q: When you strip it all away, who are you?
A: Oh, maaaaaan. I'm someone who wants to experience everything. Who wants to make sure she has fun. That it's not just work, work, work, serious, serious. The best compliment one can give me is that I have a sense of humor. I love to laugh, more than anything. If you can't laugh at yourself, you're screwed. When you're living in this kind of environment, you can lose that perspective. I like to have people around me who burst the bubble.
Q: So you're highly emotional in your personal life, yet critics dog you for controlled, underplayed performances.
A: In Australia, it was the complete opposite. There I was much more the out-there, kooky girl. It was hard there for me to get the highly dramatic, very controlled roles, and that's part of what I came over here to do. When I came here, I wanted to change that image, but I guess it's had kind of a reverse effect.
Q: It really surprises me, looking at you, being around you, how you've got this great wild streak that's like vintage Ann-Margret, sex kitten.
A: [Laughing] It is Ann-Margret! People always say to me I look like a young Ann-Margret, which I really take as a compliment. Listen, I would loooove to play a sex kitten.
Q: Because of those sex scenes with Bill Pullman in Malice, you possess surely the most-discussed and widely-ogled butt in Hollywood.
A: [Laughing] Excuse me, Stephen? My what? My butt? In Australia, we call it a bum, which sounds ever so much more demure, don't you think?
Q: Okay, fine. Bum. At the theater where I saw the movie, most of the audience couldn't help but marvel how the camera lingered for what, 30 seconds, on your posterior.
A: [Laughing] Oh, my God. Bum appreciation in the middle of a thriller.
Q: So, first of all, is that you?
A: [Laughing] Yes. Oh, wouldn't that be terrible if I had to say, "Thank you, but actually, that was the body double's bum." I couldn't believe that people were shocked by that. I suppose because I'm married, and because it's not the done thing.
Q: You didn't shock me. I just thought the camera stayed on your backside for a very long time.
A: Actually, yeah, I was surprised about that at first, too. Okay, it was a bit of a shock to me. I didn't see the rushes on that and only saw it when Harold Becker showed me the whole movie. But I've had a scene like that in Dead Calm. It's not earthshaking.
Q: You didn't have a baby then. I was just wondering what...
A: How she'll take it years from now? I don't think that's going to be an issue. There are certain things I won't do. I don't believe in being exploited in a film. I was totally exploited in a film I did in Australia when I was 17. From that point on, I went, never again. And yes, you can get it on video, but I won't tell you what the title is [laughing]. But, really, I was violated in the sense of being told one thing, then another and I was totally trusting. When you're 17, you just want to please everybody and not rock the boat. From that time on, I decided never to do anything unless I want to.
Q: How do you hope to avoid with Isabella the curse of the messed-up Hollywood kid?
A: By sending her to a normal school. By not treating her with kid gloves. By allowing her to be who she is. By always being there for her, like my parents were always there for me. My sister and I are really close and she's made me aware of how she feels when people want to be friends with her because of me. And that can be the case with children and their parents, too.
Q: Let's play some more. What will your hair do if left to its own devices?
A: [Laughing] Dreadlocks. I used to straighten my hair all the time because I was so embarrassed to have such curly hair. As a kid, I'd wear my hair shoved into a beanie when I'd go to camp, like some geek. But, really, it does pretty much what you see.
Q: What's the wildest thing you've ever done on a plane?
A: Jumped out, with my black and lime-green fluorescent parachute. Thirty times. But, you know what? We haven't jumped since the baby. Now I think, "Someone's relying on us. What would happen to her?" But I'm sure we'll get back up there again.
Q: What's the wildest thing you've ever done in a hotel room?
A: "Thaaaat's private," she purred and moaned.
Q: One more question: When you're not around anymore, how would you like people to remember you?
A: Unpretentious, with a sense of humor. Loyal. Try anything once.
Q: Nothing about your career, then?
A: Guess not. [Laughing] Oh, well.
_________________
Stephen Rebello interviewed Halle Berry for the Jan./Feb. Movieline.