This one is about Nicole Kidman and not Moulin Rouge
More than just Tom cruise’s Ex - Beauty + Talent
News : She just won herself a ’’Golden Globe Award’’ for her Superb Performance in ’’The Hours’’
Just a look at her Life and Films.
Education : St. Martin’s Youth Theater, Melbourne, Australia; Australian Theatre for Young People, Sydney, Australia; Philip Street Theatre,
Australia (voice, production, theater history)
Husband : As all of us know, Tom Cruise (actor), married on Dec 24, 1990, separated since Dec 2000 and filed divorced on Aug 8, 2001. They have 2
adopted kids, Jane (born in 1993) and Connor Antony (born 1995)
From her role in ’Dead Calm’ where she really began to get big Hollywood attention to perhaps her most well-known role as Dr. Chase Meridian in
’Batman Forever, ’ she’s moved on to critically acclaimed projects with her husband, Tom Cruise, such as ’Far and Away’ and even the much hyped
Stanley Kubrick film, ’Eyes Wide Shut.
Although many assume that Kidman is a native of Australia, she was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 20 June 1967. Her family, who lived on the
island because of a research project Kidman’s biochemist father was involved with, subsequently moved to Washington, for the next three years.
After her father’s project reached completion, Kidman and her family moved to her parents’ native Australia.
From the age of four, Kidman lived in the upper-middle-class Sydney suburb of Longueville, where she was raised with a love of the arts, particularly
dance and theatre. Kidman began ballet lessons at age three, mime classes at age eight and acting at ten in street theatre. She gained notice as a
14-year-old for her performance in “Bush Christmas” (1983), a film that became a holiday favourite on Australian television, and won acclaim for her
work in the miniseries “Vietnam” (1985).
At 19 Kidman caught the attention of the big wigs in Hollywood as a terrorised woman on the high seas in the Phillip Noyce-helmed thriller “Dead
Calm” (1989). Although the film was only a modest financial success, it sparked a mad scramble among producers and directors to spearhead the
ravishing redhead’s next project. She settled for a role as the fetching brain surgeon in the racing flick “Days of Thunder” (1990), starring opposite
future husband Tom Cruise, who later said of their initial encounter: ’’My first reaction to meeting Nic was pure lust. ’’After a whirlwind romance,
Kidman and Cruise wed at a secret ceremony on Christmas Eve the same year.
As Mrs Tom Cruise, Kidman worked regularly in Hollywood with occasional trips home for work in Australian film and TV, such as in the 1990
feature “Flirting”. In 1991 she bagged a high-profile lead role opposite Dustin Hoffman and Bruce Willis in “Billy Bathgate.”
Though Kidman learned much from working with Dustin Hoffman, his presence in the movie did not improve her status as a star in her own right.
Teaming up again with Cruise in Ron Howard’s “Far and Away” (1992) did not do much for her career either.
In 1993 Kidman played in “Malice”, playing a classic female opposite an equally Alec Baldwin, and “My Life”, a tearjerker also starring Michael
Keaton. “Batman Forever” followed in 1995, in which she played the hero’s love interest. Even though this fared somewhat better, it did little in the
way of establishing her as a serious actress.
Kidman finally freed herself from being just Mrs. Tom Cruise with 1995’s “To Die For”, in which she delivered a stunning lead performance as a
predatory, fame-hungry housewife with an insatiable desire to achieve television fame. Further critical praise greeted Kidman’s performance as Isabel
Archer in Jane Campion’s 1996 adaptation of Henry James’ “The Portrait of a Lady”.
The leggy redhead starred opposite George Clooney in the big-budget action extravaganza “The Peacemaker” (1997) and with Sandra Bullock in the
frothy “Practical Magic” (1998). Neither movie was a hit at the box office.
In 1999, Kidman landed her most controversial to date, Stanley Kubrick’s erotic psychological thriller “Eyes Wide Shut”, in which she starred
alongside Cruise for the third time. The film received mixed reviews.
She next returned to Australia to team up Baz Luhrmann for the musical “Moulin Rouge”. In the film, in which she plays an alluring French courtesan,
Kidman had to dance and sing. The bold experiment debuted at Cannes this year to mixed reviews, with the media focusing more on Kidman’s
emotional state after her much-publicised split from Cruise.
A knee injury sustained during a dance scene in “Moulin Rouge” forced Kidman to drop out of David Fincher’s thriller “The Panic Room.”
We wish her ’’All the Best’’ for the Oscars.