She's married to the hottest young film star on the planet. Her own film career is in high gear. She's wealthy, famous and drop-dead gorgeous. She has a new child. She has it all.
But Nicole Kidman is unaffected and unassuming. She may not be the girl next door, but she doesn't act as if she lives far down the street.Relaxed and natural, she shows no trace of the big-star remoteness for which husband Tom Cruise has become known. Rather, she speaks freely and openly in a thick Australian accent as she discusses her life and her new film, "My Life."
In the film, Kidman plays the pregnant wife of a Los Angeles public-relations man (Michael Keaton) who's dying of cancer. As he videotapes his life for his unborn son, he learns a closeness to his family and a joy in living he's never known before.
"It wasn't just a job," Kidman, 26, said of her performance. "Confronting death, birth, losing someone - that was terrifying. I didn't sleep well at all. I had a lot of nightmares."
But "My Life," she said, "was the kind of film where everyone was bonded together."
"The director (Bruce Joel Rubin) had also written the movie and was extremely dedicated. There was a real sense of purpose."
Kidman's character gives birth in the film. The actress had help playing a new mom: She and Cruise adopted a baby girl, Isabella, just before the shoot started. (The baby is now 9 months old.) "I had all these maternal instincts and emotions that had arisen, and I was able to put them on the screen," Kidman said.
"When I'd be washing the baby (which she pronounces `bye-bee') in the movie, people would say, `You're so good at that.' And I'd say, `Yeah, I should be.' The only difference is that the movie baby was a boy, and we have a little girl."
In her private life, Kidman said, it was "the right time" for her to have a child, "and that's important for the child, too."
When they're both working, Kidman and Cruise hire a nanny. But when Kidman isn't working, they don't.
"The baby's always with me," she said. "We really try to stay together as a family. Isabella travels with us. That's just part of the job."
Currently, she has time off before starting work on "The Portrait of a Lady," based on an 1881 Henry James novel. Until then, she'll be with Cruise in New Orleans while he films "Interview With the Vampire."
The two have made two films together: 1990's "Days of Thunder," on which they met, and 1992's "Far and Away." They'd like to team again if they can find a good script.
"Working with Tom, I already know him, so there's an easiness," Kidman said. "But you can't get away with anything. You've got to be truthful."
Working with Keaton also was rewarding, she said, "because we became very good friends."
Playing a woman who's been married 12 years, Kidman felt a need "to show an ease, so that when you touch someone, it's second nature. If you don't know the other actor, it's hard to touch them."
She began work on "My Life" two weeks after finishing the current hit thriller "Malice."
"I talk fast, and I like things to happen fast, but I'll never do that again," Kidman said. "I ended up with the flu, lying in bed."
The genesis of her work in "My Life" came in 1989, when Rubin's "Ghost" was being cast. Kidman was still in Australia and sent him an audition tape. She never heard back, but she met Rubin two years later and learned he had been impressed.
"That was a great lesson to me," Kidman said. "As an actor, you get rejected so often. But you have to maintain enthusiasm and determination and throw yourself into it and keep trying."
She did gain American acclaim in 1989's "Dead Calm," after becoming a star in Australia for her work in the miniseries "Vietnam" and "Bangkok Hilton," which won her best actress awards and nominations Down Under.