21 Jan 2008

Katie Holmes: Nicole’s pregnancy


Katie Holmes only had well wishes for Nicole Kidman Wednesday night at the Los Angeles premiere of her new film Mad Money.

“I’m so happy for her,” Holmes, 29, says of Kidman’s pregnancy news. “It’s wonderful.”

Kidman, 40, confirmed earlier this week that she and husband Keith Urban are expecting their first child together. The actress has two adopted children – Connor, 12, and Isabella, 15 – with ex-husband Tom Cruise (who’s now, of course, married to Holmes).

Cruise escorted Holmes – in a dazzling strapless Armani dress – to her premiere, but made sure not to steal the spotlight from his wife. Instead he let her work the press solo while he walked across the street to sign autographs and take photos with fans.

The actor was similarly supportive during the making of Mad Money, Holmes said.

“Having [20-month-old daughter] Suri and Tom [on set] was wonderful,” she added. “You think you love to do something and then you have the people you love there. It makes it a billion times better and you didn’t realize you were missing that before. It’s like ‘Oh my God, life can be this good.’”

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Katie Holmes 'so happy' about Nicole Kidman's pregnancy

One person who is thrilled about by Nicole Kidman's announcement that she is pregnant is Katie Holmes.

Holmes, who is married to the Aussie actress' ex hubby Tom Cruise, was questioned by reporters at the premiere of her new movie "Mad Money" about her feelings on Kidman's pregnancy.

To this Holmes replied that she was thrilled for Kidman.

"I'm so happy for her. It's wonderful!" Usmagazine.com quoted Holmes, as saying.

Holmes' comments just might get her into Kidman's good books once again, for reports have been circulating that alls not well between the two women.

And the cause of their strained relationship is said to have been caused by Holmes' gushing that Tom and Nicole's adopted children Isabella and Connor call her "mom."

Just days before Kidman had admitted that her kids didn't call her mom but by her first name.

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Nicole Kidman considered becoming a nun after she split from Tom Cruise, it has been claimed

The Oscar-winning actress, whose 10-year marriage to Tom ended in 2001, was reportedly left so heartbroken she researched into joining a Catholic order that accepted divorced women.

The claims are made in British author Andrew Morton's new book, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography.

Morton claims: "Nicole considered nunneries in Australia that would admit women who had been married."

The writer, who also alleges the Church of Scientology was responsible for Nicole and Tom's divorce and claims Tom is second in command of the bizarre sci-fi cult, has defended his controversial tome.

Morton - who has penned a biography on the late Princess Diana - said: "I've got a reputation as a very careful biographer. I have spent over two years carefully researching this book. I asked Tom for an interview and he declined.

"Nicole started to pull away from Scientology. That sent alarm bells ringing inside the religion.

"Scientology would be a shadow of what it is today if it had not been for the involvement of Tom Cruise. More than that, he's been the frontman for the organisation."

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18 Jan 2008

Nicole Kidman Getting Boring

If it seems as if Nicole Kidman has amped up her acting challenges in the past few years, it's no accident. "For 10 years my marriage defined me far more strongly than my work," she says of her union with Tom Cruise. "I wasn't choosing movies for any other reason than dabbling here and there because I thought, Oh, well, I want to keep my hand in." Rarely did a woman depart the dilettante lounge with as much resolve as she. Kidman's postmarital roles have included a clinically depressed writer (Virginia Woolf in The Hours for which she won an Oscar), an abused cleaning lady recovering from the death of her children (The Human Stain), a woman barely getting by during the Civil War (Cold Mountain) and a fugitive victimized by nasty townspeople in the West (Dogville). Sometimes unhappiness is its own reward.

These days Kidman has so many awards and accolades, it's getting boring. But she isn't. She has the ability, like a glass bullet, to carry fragility and force, to be beautiful and a little unnerving. While her work reeks of an almost clinical precision, Kidman's approach is fallible and inexact. "I just feel my way through," she says. "If I had to give an acting class, I wouldn't know what to do."

Though her post-Oscar movies have not been big hits, her new willingness to experiment is being noticed. She gets labeled an ice queen but is more daring than any of her contemporaries of similar box-office clout. Can you see Julia Roberts making a movie as limited in its appeal as Dogville? Kidman is not the first star to play down her beauty for a role, but her bold choices have set a new bar for Hollywood actresses. And now as a producer (In the Cut), she's creating juicy roles for more of them.

She has helped redeem a country too. Sometimes, in a world shared with Rupert Murdoch, the Crocodile Hunter and the Wiggles, it's hard to be Australian--as if the country is full of curios and barbarians. Kidman is Australia's best evidence of passion and sophistication, though she doesn't see it. "Really?" she says. "Oh, I'd like to think I have a sliver of vulgarity." --By Belinda Luscombe

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Michael Perry: Nicole Kidman in a family way

SYDNEY — Oscar-winning Australian actress Nicole Kidman is pregnant and has pulled out of shooting her next film “The Reader” with her baby expected around mid-2008. “Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban confirmed today that they are expecting a baby,” Kidman publicist Wendy Day said in a statement released on Tuesday. “The couple are thrilled.

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Kate Winslet and Nicole Kidman



Kate Winslet Replaces Pregnant Nicole Kidman In Film?
Kate Winslet has replaced Nicole Kidman in World War II drama "The Reader," after the pregnant Australian actress pulled out of the project. Kidman on Monday confirmed she is expecting a baby with her husband Keith Urban.

She was due to start shooting the adaptation of German author Bernhard Schlink's book with director Stephen Daldry later this month, but withdrew from the movie after learning of her pregnancy.

And now Winslet, who was originally offered the role but had to decline because the shoot clashed with her commitments to upcoming film Revolutionary Road, has now signed up to star in "The Reader" opposite Ralph Fiennes.

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Beauty Nicole Kidman to be Citezen of the World


MOULIN ROUGE! Beauty Nicole Kidman will reportedly be named Citizen of the World by the United Nation next month.

Nicole Kidman
The OSCAR-winning actress will receive the prestigious award from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for her humanitarian efforts on behalf of the UN.

Kidman dazzled UN officials earlier this year when she and co-star Sean Penn mingled with them during breaks from their movie The Interpreter, which was filmed at the UN headquarters in New York.

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The World film Premiere of The Golden Compass


Tags: andy serkis, dakota blue richards, daniel craig, eva green, film, golden compass, his dark materials, lyra, nicole kidman, northern lights, philip pullman, sam elliot, world premiere (What's this)
THE stars were shining at the eagerly awaited World film Premiere of The Golden Compass, adapted from the bestselling Philip Pullman novel. See our picture gallery from the red carpet.

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Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban


LOS ANGELES — Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are expecting their first child together.

The news was announced Monday by Kidman's publicist, Catherine Olim. It was also posted on Urban's Web site.

"The couple are thrilled," Olim said.

Kidman and Urban are in Sydney, Australia, where the 40-year-old actress has been working on Baz Luhrmann's epic romance, "Australia."

She was due to start filming for Stephen Daldry's post-World War II drama, "The Reader," later this month, but her Australian publicist, Wendy Day, said she understands Kidman has withdrawn from the movie because of her pregnancy.

A call to the Weinstein Co., which is producing "The Reader," wasn't immediately returned.

Speculation had been increasing in recent weeks over Kidman's maternal condition.

"For years I've seen speculation and for years it's never been right, so I didn't think it was right this time," Day said. "And then she's just rung this morning."

Urban, a Grammy-winning singer and guitarist raised in Australia, and Kidman were married in June 2006.

Kidman has two children, Isabella, 14, and Connor, 12, from her marriage to Tom Cruise. They divorced in 2001.

She recently told Vanity Fair magazine she had a miscarriage early in her relationship with Cruise, leading them to adopt.

"I feel enormous love for whoever my children's birthparents are," Kidman told Ladies' Home Journal in 2006. "And if my children choose to go find them at some stage, I can't wait. Because -- it's the weirdest thing -- I actually feel (they're) very connected to us as a big, strange family, and whether they choose to search for them or not, who knows."

Cruise married Katie Holmes in November 2006, seven months after the birth of their daughter, Suri.

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Nicole Kidman’s Hamptons Share

Nicole Kidman has a habit of switching between studio flicks and more-indie fare. This fall, she kicks off New Line’s new fantasy trilogy with The Golden Compass—and stars in Noah Baumbach’s dysfunctional family drama Margot at the Wedding as Margot, none too happy with her sister’s choice of fiancĂ© (Jack Black).

So, what’s up with Margot?
She’s having a breakdown, and with that comes an anger and an acerbic wit. I wanted the pain to bleed through her. She’s trying to put Band-Aids over her wounds, but I want you to see the blood oozing out anyway. Sorry, but that’s my visual description of it.

Was it odd working with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Noah? It’s their first film together as a couple.
Well, they’re an amazing, creative couple, and it really is lovely when a director and an actress fall in love. But it’s tricky any time you form a triangle. When Tom [Cruise] and I worked with Stanley [Kubrick], I remember Stanley saying “Triangles are hard.”

You play Jennifer’s older sister. How did you two connect?
Jennifer has stayed so true to her artistic nature. She’s just so beautifully fine. We’d lie around in the bed, rehearsing.

In bed?
Yes. We all lived in this house in the Hamptons. Jennifer would cook breakfast on Sunday, and we’d all go to work Monday to Friday, and hang out on the weekend. Jack would play guitar. You don’t make films like that right now—it’s more a seventies way of making films.

In the trailer, Jennifer’s character says that Margot once tried to bake her in the oven, with paprika. Is their relationship anything like yours with your sister?
It’s the complete opposite. My sister and I are the warmest, twinlike sisters, and she is my closest, closest confidante. You cannot penetrate our world.

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6 Jan 2008

Biography Nicole Kidman


From All Movie Guide: Once relegated to decorative parts for years and long acknowledged as the wife of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman spent the latter half of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium earning much-deserved critical respect. Standing a willowy 5'11" and sporting one of Hollywood's most distinctive heads of frizzy red hair, the Australian actress first entered the American mindset with her role opposite Cruise in Days of Thunder (1990), but it wasn't until she starred as a homicidal weather girl in Gus Van Sant's 1995 To Die For that she achieved recognition as a thespian of considerable range and talent.

Though many assume that the heavily-accented Kidman hails from down under, she was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 20, 1967, to Australian parents. Her family, who lived on the island because of a research project that employed Kidman's biochemist father, then moved to Washington, D.C. for the next three years. After her father's project reached completion, Nicole and her family -- which also included her RN mother and a younger sister -- harkened back to Aussie country.

Raised in the upper-middle-class Sydney suburb of Longueville for the remainder of the 1970s and well into the eighties, Kidman grew up infused with a love of the arts, particularly dance and theatre. Trained in ballet from the age of three, she made her acting debut in a nativity play at six. By the age of ten, she was studying acting in drama school, and she subsequently trained at the St. Martin's Youth Theatre in Melbourne and at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre.

An awkward, gawky teenager, teased relentlessly because of her height, Kidman took refuge in the theater, and landed her first professional role at the age of 14, when she starred in Bush Christmas (1983), a TV movie about a group of kids who band together with an Aborigine to find their stolen horse. Brian Trenchard-Smith's BMX Bandits (1983) -- an adventure film/teen movie -- followed , with Kidman as the lead character, Judy; it opened to solid reviews. Kidman then worked for the gifted John Duigan (The Winter of Our Dreams, Romero) twice, first as one of the two adolescent leads of the Duigan-directed "Room to Move" episode of the Australian TV series Winners (1985) and, more prestigiously, as the star of Duigan's acclaimed miniseries Vietnam (1987), produced by Kennedy-Miller In the latter, the actress won positive notices for her portrayal of an awkward 1960s schoolgirl who matures into an idealistic 24-year-old Vietnam war protester.

Kidman also secured Hollywood representation at about this time, which opened quite a few doors of opportunity. In 1988, Kidman got another major break when she was tapped to star in Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm (1989). A psychological thriller about a couple (Kidman and Sam Neill) who are terrorized by a young man they rescue from a sinking ship (Billy Zane), the film helped to establish the then-21-year-old Kidman as an actress of considerable mettle. That same year, her starring performance in the made-for-TV Bangkok Hilton (which cast her as a young woman incarcerated in a Thai prison on false drug smuggling charges) further bolstered her reputation.

By now a rising star in Australia, Kidman began to earn recognition across the Pacific. In 1989,Tom Cruise picked her for a starring role in her first American feature, Tony Scott's Days of Thunder (1990). The film, a testosterone-saturated drama about a racecar driver (Cruise), cast Kidman as the neurologist who falls in love with him. A sizable hit, it had the added advantage of introducing Kidman to Cruise, whom she married in December of 1990.

Following a role as Dustin Hoffman's moll in Robert Benton's Billy Bathgate (1991), and a supporting turn as a snotty boarding school senior in the masterful Flirting (1991), which teamed her with Duigan a third time, Kidman collaborated with Cruise on their second film together, Far and Away (1992). Despite their joint star quality, gorgeous cinematography, and adequate direction by Ron Howard, critics quite rightly panned the lackluster film.

Kidman's subsequent projects, My Life and Malice ( both 1993), were similarly disappointing, despite scattered favorable reviews. Batman Forever (1995), in which she played the hero's love interest, Dr. Chase Meridian, fared somewhat better, but did little in the way of establishing Kidman as a serious actress even as it raked in mile-high returns at the summer box office.

Kidman finally broke out of her window-dressing typecasting when Gus Van Sant enlisted her to portray the ruthless protagonist of To Die For (1995). Directed from a Buck Henry script, this uber-dark comedy casts Kidman as Suzanne Stone, a television broadcaster ready and eager to commit one homicide after another to propel herself to the top. Displaying a gift for impeccable comic timing, she earned Golden Globe and National Broadcast Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress. Further critical praise greeted Kidman's performance as Isabel Archer in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. Now regarded as one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood -- as well as one half of its most high-profile couple -- Kidman starred opposite George Clooney in the big-budget action extravaganza The Peacemaker (1997) and opposite Sandra Bullock in the frothy Practical Magic (1998). Both films weren't remotely as interesting or successful as Kidman's concurrent return to the stage in London's Donmar Warehouse production of The Blue Room. Cast as several characters, one of which required her to play a scene in the nude, Kidman inspired a sensation among both audiences and critics, the latter of whom were moved to write numerous lines of sweaty praise for the actress' full-bodied flirtation with nudity. The play enjoyed a sold-out run in both London and New York, and Kidman earned an Evening Standard Award and Olivier nomination for her performance.

In 1999, Kidman starred in one of her most controversial films to date, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and cloaked in secrecy from the beginning of its production, the film also stars Cruise as Kidman's physician husband. During the spring and summer of 1999, the media unsurprisingly hyped the couple's onscreen pairing -- and the alleged envelope-pushing sexual content -- as the two major selling points. However, despite an added measure of intrigue from Kubrick's death only weeks after shooting wrapped, Eyes Wide Shut repeated the performance of prior Kubrick efforts by opening to a radically mixed reaction.

Meanwhile, as the new millennium arrived, problems began to erupt between Kidman and Tom Cruise; divorce followed soon after, and the tabloids swirled with talk of new relationships for the both of them. She concurrently plunged into a string of daring, eccentric film roles - edgier and chancer than anything she had done before --and seemed to relish greater and greater challenges as her career rolled on.

Kidman began this trend with a role in Jez Butterworth's Birthday Girl (2001) as a Russian mail order bride, and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge (2001), which cast her, in the lead, as a courtesan in a 19th century Paris hopped up with late 20th century pop songs. The picture - a carnivalesque whirligig of color, light, sound and kinesthesia -- dazzled some and alienated others, but once again, journalists flocked to Kidman's side.

Following this success (the picture gleaned a Best Picture nod but failed to win), Kidman gained even more positive notice for her turn as an icy mother after the key to a dark mystery in Alejandro Amenabar's spooky throwback, The Others. When the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards finally arrived, Kidman received nominations for her memorable performances in both films. Though her emotionally fragile performance in The Others lost out to Sissy Spacek's performace in Todd Field's In the Bedroom (2001), Kidman's upbeat performance in the lively Moulin Rouge found the versatile actress taking home a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy in addition to the Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Though it couldn't have been any further from her flamboyant turn in Moulin Rouge, Kidman's camouflaged role as Virginia Woolf in the following year's The Hours (2002) (she wears little makeup and a prosthetic nose), for which she delivered a mesmerizing and haunting performance, kept the Oscar and Golden Globe nominations steadily flowing in for the acclaimed actress. The fair-haired beauty finally snagged the Best Actress Oscar that had been so elusive the year before.

After the elation that followed the Oscar ceremony, Kidman continued to take on challenging work under the aegis of intensely cerebral directors. She played the lead, Grace - a woman on the run from gangsters who holes up in a 1930s western town -- in Lars von Trier's Dogville, although she declined to continue in Von Trier's planned trilogy of films about that character. She swung for the Oscar fences again in 2003 as the female lead in Cold Mountain, but it was co-star Renee Zellweger who won the statuette that year. Kidman did solid work for Jonathan Glazer in the Jean-Claude Carriere-penned Birth, as a woman revisited by the incarnation of her dead husband in a small child's body, but stumbled with a pair of empty-headed comedies, Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives and Nora Ephron's Bewitched (both 2005), that her skills could not save. She worked with Sean Penn in the political thriller The Interpreter in 2005. In 2006 Kidman's personal life took a turn for the better when she married country singer Keith Urban.

For the most part, Kidman continued to stretch herself with increasingly demanding and arty roles throughout 2006. In Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, Kidman plays controversial housewife-cum-photographer Diane Arbus --a role that plunges the actress into a bizarre, fictionalized romance with the freakishly hirsute paramour Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey, Jr.). In Happy Feet, fellow Aussie Dr. George Miller's live action Babe follow-up about a penguin who learns to tap dance to impress a crush, Kidman voices one of several talking Arctic animals.

Meanwhile, Kidman returned to popcorn pictures by playing Mrs. Coulter in Chris Weitz's massive, $150-million fantasy adventure The Golden Compass (2007), adapted from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series of books. She also signed on to headline the sci-fi thriller Invasion for Warner Brothers, a loose remake of the classic Invasion of hte Body Snatchers directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Kidman plays a psychiatrist who, during a global epidemic that begins changing human behavior en masse - infers that an alien invasion is responsible. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide

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