Nicole Kidman: The Rise Of the 90s Film Icon (Full Documentary) | Amplified

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] while australia may be a very long way from hollywood it's a country that has produced more than its fair share of screen icons and with the country itself taking center stage in baz luhrmann's latest epic australia looks set to become just as big in tinseltown as its elegant oscar-winning homegrown star nicole kidman like a few other notable aussie stars who have made it big in the usa nicole had close ties to america from day one she was born in hawaii to australian parents on june 20 1967 giving her citizenship of both america and australia a fact that would come in very useful for her globe-trotting life to come as a teenager growing up in north sydney nicole earned the nickname stalky due to her striking height a statuesque five foot eleven but self-consciousness was never a problem for nicole who even as a teenager had her goals very firmly in place one of the reasons nicole kidman is where she is is because she knew from childhood where she wanted to go she was incredibly focused right from the start and there's a story about her doing uh an acting workshop at the age of 17 and standing out from everybody else there just because she was so focused and so totally committed and knew she wanted to be a professional actress and a really good one and a really famous one even from that young age she scored early roles in television dramas and won the affection of australian audiences with films like bush christmas and bmx bandits in 1989 at the age of 22 she played the wife of a naval officer held captive on a pacific ocean yacht trip in the thriller dead calm it's a major hollywood film philip noyce the director and there's only three actors in it and most the time it's just nicole kidman and billy zane on a yacht he's a psycho killer she has to go through a whole gamut of emotions and it's a very physical role and she's there the entire time she really nails it dead calm may have been the name of the movie but nicole's life was anything but it wasn't long before she received a call asking her if she could come to los angeles to talk about a potential movie project and meet its star the project was a film called days of thunder and the star none other than hollywood crown prince tom cruise it was a role that would set the australian starlet on the path to becoming hollywood royalty despite nicole's initial worries about being noticeably taller than megastar tom she won the role of dr claire lewicki the surgeon who gets an injured racing driver back behind the wheel it seems nicole's height didn't matter to tom either with speculation of an off-screen romance between the couple beginning even before filming was complete nicole and tom denied the rumors until tom's divorce from wife mimi rogers was finalized the pair went public in 1990 and were married on christmas eve of that same year nicole and tom was certainly a match made in heaven for gossip columnists and paparazzi a marriage like this was about as close as hollywood gets to a royal wedding and there was no way the press were going to leave the newly crowned king and queen of showbiz alone but they would both have to acclimatise to the media's fascination with their private lives no you know what i just you just look at it and when they go far off then you sue and you know just certain things you just you don't pay attention to and you know mostly just you just have to go and live your life you can't give can't give it too much attention and we're here we love you know what we do we love films we love you know and feel privileged to be doing something that we enjoy doing and so the other stuff you just just can't give it too much credence constant media attention was something that nicole would soon come to know as a fact of life proving that she wasn't about to be overshadowed by her mega star husband in 1995 she starred in to die for alongside matt dillon nicole's character was suzanne stone moreto a wannabe television newscaster who is willing to do anything to get what she wants even if it means killing her husband while nicole had no need to go that far she's certainly no stranger to rumor has it she called director gus van sant personally to ensure she was cast ahead of rival actress meg ryan and later spent days locked in a motel room watching trash tv to make sure her american accent was the real deal i think because she is raised in a world where television is everything her whole upbringing you know she lives in a small town and she just wants so desperately to be noticed i think some people had a slight suspicion that she was playing herself in to die for and that she really was that ambitious of that ruthless but because the film was so funny it was like she was taking a little shot at herself and so you forgive her for it and end up liking her more because of it to die for confirmed her as a major talent she received a british academy award nomination for best actress and walked away with a best actress award for her work in the film at the 1996 golden globes when she made to die for she showed us a whole new level of her acting skills it was already apparent how focused she was how committed she was and how much research you'd do for any role but to die for required something else it required a lightness of touch it required an intelligence and a real appreciation of that blackly comic style that it was shot her next trip to the red carpet was to promote the action flick batman forever in which he played batman's love interest dr chase meridian as ever hollywood's golden couple were on hand to toast batman forever's success when it premiered in los angeles it was i mean for me it was just great fun to be to be able to be involved in one of these movies yeah i can't wait to see it nicole and tom became well known for always being publicly supportive of each other's work if there was a red carpet to be walked you could guarantee that the couple would be walking it arm-in-arm as any loving partner would nicole was always around to support her husband on his busier days it was actually great to see him so enthused and you know working so hard i think you know for the two of us we're both very supportive of each other so you really get excited when when the other one is doing something that they love doing the success of batman forever straight after to die for proved that nicole could hold her own in a hollywood blockbuster alongside big name stars like jim carrey val kilmer and tommy lee jones just as easily as she could play a very convincing psychopath in a small ensemble film like to die for nicole was beginning to display a quality she has now become renowned for as an actor versatility over the years public opinion about nicole kidman seems to have changed sometimes she's the absolute darling as she was after a split from tom cruise sometimes she seems to be perceived as some sort of aloof and quite cold figure but through all the years and no matter how divisive opinions are people look back on to die for as their favorite film even now people say i don't really like nicole kimmer but i loved her to die for and maybe that says something about the perception that she has generally [Music] nicole's next role took her to 19th century europe for the period drama portrait of a lady you know as an actor you want to be stretched you want to be challenged you want to do things that you think you can't do so that's what was very exciting to me was the i suppose the way in which the two roles are quite extreme directed by new zealander jane campion and adapted from henry james classic novel portrait of a lady follows the story of a young american woman who challenges the usual expectations of life among conservative american expatriates in 19th century europe the film used many exotic locations memories of which would stay with nicole throughout her career i even get to go to florence luca roma um london uh and i speak italian so i got to sort of speak some italian in the movie and it was beautiful it was really one of the highlights that i memories that i'll have for the rest of my life is making a movie in italy it's one of my favorite countries in the world working alongside co-stars john malkovich martin donovan and barbara hershey nicole proved that she could gracefully handle the convoluted dialogue of period drama in fact nicole was such a fan of the original novel she had committed to the project before the script was even finished when i read script i either relate to the character or there's something in it that hits me and i just say wow i would love to be involved in that project and you know with this it was the novel because i i was signed on to do it before there was even a script nicole was riding high and it seemed like she was capable of anything her brilliant performance in portrait of a lady led to speculation that she would be nominated for a 1996 academy award you take it as a great compliment and then you go back and do your work i think you just you know it's it either happens or it doesn't happen um and ultimately you keep working this time though the rumors were simply rumors nicole was not ultimately nominated for an oscar husband tom however did receive a nomination that same year for his show me the money performance in jerry maguire to her motto of keep working nicole took on the role of dr julia kelly in the action thriller the peacemaker expectations were high of both nicole and the movie and the pressure was on not least because it was to be the first film produced by steven spielberg's dreamworks studio the peacemaker saw nicole and co-star george clooney on the hunt for a terrorist who has stolen nuclear weapons and is determined to destroy the united nations building nicole was building a reputation for being a meticulous researcher when it came to her movie roles the peacemaker was no exception when i started doing the research and realizing how many nuclear weapons really exist and where they exist that was terrifying that was something that i had no understanding of and now having an awareness that almost you think about it more and you worry about it more naturally nicole and george triumphant save the un itself a landmark that would come to have significant meaning in nicole's life and career to come [Music] the late 1990s were a busy time for nicole both on a professional and personal level she dabbled in a little witchcraft alongside sandra bullock in the comedy practical magic and spent six months studying the method at the new york actors studio meanwhile she and tom had adopted two children son connor and daughter isabella with million dollar incomes lavish homes in sydney and los angeles and stellar careers they were scaling heights no other hollywood couple could match then came the rumors that they were deep in preparation for their first film together since ron howard's far and away in 1992 directed by stanley kubrick eyes wide shut would tell the story of a new york doctor who embarks on a surreal sexy adventure after his wife reveals that she has contemplated having an affair at the time of making eyes white shut nicole and tom were like king and queen of hollywood for them to be working together with a legendary director like stanley kubrick was always going to be the source of huge public and media fascination and it was especially when everybody knew that the source story for eyes white was such an intense film about uh sexuality and the relationship within a marriage so i think there was that sort of public perception that we're going to see what was really going on in the kidman and cruise marriage behind closed doors even to seasoned actors like nicole and tom the prospect of being directed by a giant of filmmaking like kubrick was a little daunting and um we all sat down we went to stanley's house and we sat in a room um with him and i was completely intimidated i don't know about tom but well he challenged convention just in his life and he knew he knew and he created an environment in which he could flourish as as a filmmaker and an artist so that that was inspiring you know there are few people working today that that can do that and he really knew how he wanted to make his movies and he did that for nicole and tom the project was first and foremost an opportunity to draw on their own experience to create a detailed and credible portrait of the complex dynamics of marriage when we started the film we'd been married for seven years and we've now been married at the end of this year for 10 years so there are many changes [Laughter] but um i think we were if we had had to make this film earlier in our relationship i i don't think it would have been um i don't think we would have given the performances we gave and i don't think we would have been um i suppose as willing to explore the different things that we had to explore in the film nicole and tom found the combination of art and life made for a challenging and sometimes confronting rehearsal process stanley tom and i our rehearsal process was sitting in a room not standing up and doing the scenes but sitting in a room and talking talking about things that are very intimate and very private and a lot of the times things you would not necessarily want to deal with or want to say to your your spouse so it was um it was a really interesting time it was and i think ultimately it really strengthened us and it was a great gift to have that particularly at that time of our relationship and then also now to have the film because of kubrick's secrecy about the film rumors flew thick and fast about its plot and content the film's sexual themes provoked much speculation with some journalists writing that it would be the sexiest film ever made film is about sex but it's about so many other things as well and i think that it uh it got blown out of proportion actually the the other sex in it i don't necessarily think it's about sex it's about sexual obsession and relationships and uh you know the dynamic of marriage sadly stanley kubrick passed away in 1999 four days after screening the final cut of the film and despite the hype many critics did not find eyes wide shut to be as sexy as they had hoped with some reviews calling the film cold and slow eyes white shirt is a cold film it is a slow film and it's not at all sexy it's not at all erotic but it's not supposed to be it's a film about sex and it's a film about sexual relations in marriages but it's not a sexy film when people talk about chemistry between actors they're talking about spontaneity which in a kubrick film is pretty much impossible because he does so many takes that for enacted to be spontaneous after the 46th take is nine impossible they're also talking about that little erotic zing between actors which in a film like this isn't there and isn't appropriate because it's a film of ideas and it's a film about when there are cracks in the marriage and how they show themselves yet some tabloids still linked the lack of sizzle to marital difficulties between its two stars rumors and gossip had long since become part of their daily lives but nicole was determined not to let the tabloids go too far both the star and the national enquirer were served with suits for claiming that nicole and tom needed sex therapists on set to help them get in the mood for eyes wide shut's more erotic scenes but in public at least nicole and tom presented a united front as it turned out however there was plenty of trouble in paradise in news that blindsided even the celebrity watchers nicole and tom announced their separation in february of 2001. tom filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences between the couple nicole was said to be stunned by his sudden change of heart and allegedly begged him to stay and seek marriage counselling but there was no turning back for tom the shock separation inevitably sparked a media frenzy during the months following the announcement magazines and gossip columns were flooded with sensational stories and reports of what had gone on behind closed doors some sources claimed that the couple had celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary on christmas eve of 2000 by renewing their vows in a romantic private ceremony [Music] however according to tom's divorce filing the two had split in december just before their anniversary then came the speculation that tom's timing had been influenced by the fact that under californian law after 10 years of marriage a spouse is liable to pay alimony until the partner remarries but could penny pinching really have been a motive for a top hollywood star earning around 25 million dollars a movie there were also reports that nicole had been in the early stages of pregnancy at the time of the shock split and that the stress of the breakup had led to a tragic miscarriage how much truth lay behind any of these rumors may never be known but there was no doubt that tom had moved on when pictures of him and his vanilla sky co-star penelope cruz began hitting the front pages exactly what irreconcilable differences drove nicole and tom apart have rightly never been made public but speculation centers on tom's rumored insistence that his wife embrace his controversial religion scientology tom has since married his third wife actress katie holmes just as tom made no secret of his newfound love when he announced it by jumping on oprah winfrey's couch katie has made no secret of the fact that she has joined her husband not only in marriage but in his faith oh yeah i i have been um learning about it and um i've really been enjoying it i've been listening to some congresses and i've started auditing and i really enjoy it it's really helping me out a lot while her marriage was struggling nicole shielded herself from the turmoil of her personal life by doing what she does best throwing herself body and soul into her work [Music] and what better role to occupy her than one that would require her not only to act but also sing and dance milan rouge is really important for nicole because it was the first major film after i split from tom cruise so public sympathy was kind of high on her side and everybody was really hoping that she'd do well it's a musical yet it's a love story yet it's got really high comedy i mean it's so many things so it's so hard to describe the movie directed by fellow australian baz luhrmann moulin rouge was a lavish musical set in an infamous parisian nightclub nicole was cast as the sultry and seductive satine alongside ewan mcgregor who finds himself plunged into a decadent world where anything goes except falling in love it's about love it's about belief it's about i mean the message at the end of the film is it's better to have loved and lost than ever to have loved at all losing love was something all too fresh in nicole's heart during the promotional tour for moulin rouge she admitted feeling overwhelmed at times by the attention given to her recent divorce and the people i want to know out there like about your personal life anything are you talking about have you moved on from tom is that i don't think you ever move on no i think you i think that you know but certainly anyway despite her personal life being in the spotlight nicole's incredible work in moulin rouge proved that nothing was going to upstage her most versatile performance yet nothing else no one can deny that she's a surprise like you see parts of her you haven't seen before and i think it's true you know what and she is in her very essence like an old style movie star in the sense that she can be wacky funny tear your art out and then she's got this singing dancing ability now so nicole even found time that same year to record the number one single something stupid with robbie williams for christmas of 2001. singing usually confined to the shower i'd sang in a band when i was 17 um where i i would do the blondie covers that and that was the extent of my singing career and then suddenly you know when i got cast in this film i was in a recording studio with people who'd recorded with madonna and annie lenox and bjork i mean it was amazing for me entirely short on sound stages at sydney's fox studios was an incredibly demanding experience for nicole who injured her knee while filming a complicated dance sequence just just the idea of having to work we worked 17 hours a day on this thing to get it done because we didn't have a huge budget to make it and so you know you have to work longer hours to get everything done and he's a very demanding director a fantastic director but extremely demanding so i mean the physical sort of thing of being very tired and still having to get through it but you know as an actor you dream of working on something like this with the fur still flying in the press about her breakup from tom nicole's performance in moulin rouge finally gave the media something else to talk about public sympathy was so high for nicole kidman at that point she really would have had to make a major mess up for it not to work and she didn't she showed us that she could sing and she could dance and she could act all the same time which is triple whammy really but i think out of context her performance is overshadowed by that of you mcgregor's because there's something so vivid and vital and alive about you mcgregor in that film he's he's completely compelling whereas nicole kidman's satin is slightly more ethereal and hard to grasp a hold of however she had managed to pull it off the scorned woman had certainly picked herself up dusted herself off and turned in an award-winning performance her all-singing all-dancing role in moulin rouge won her a golden globe for best actress in a motion picture musical or comedy in 2002 having already won the public sympathy vote she was now being painted in the media as a champion of triumph over adversity the success of moulin rouge also saw a huge resurgence in popularity for movie musicals worldwide it's really exciting to know that there's other musicals now being made like chicago's going to be made and rent and and it's nice to have been part of a film that started hopefully um a whole new i mean we get to see musicals again which is terrific nicole's next role would take her a long way from the glitz and glamour of the musical to a much darker place in the others true to form nicole chose a role that was as different to her previous one as possible well actually last year i made both these films and i was so lucky because i got to do moulin rouge and um the others in the one year and creatively as an actress you just don't get to do such diverse characters and that was the thing that they were both so different to play satine in a courtesan and then to go and play this sort of very sexually repressed woman who's trapped in this house you know that's that's fun directed by alejandro amenaba the others is a terrifying tale of a young mother living with her children in a seemingly haunted country mansion i love this i love the genre i love to i love to be scared i like to go and see a movie where i scream and jump and it's uh it's something that i enjoy to see so unfortunately for nicole the knee injury she sustained while shooting moulin rouge flared up during production of the others forcing her to pull out of the lead role in her next picture david fincher's panic room the role went to jody foster but nicole still has a presence in the film as a voice on the telephone likewise it was nicole's voice or her transformation of it that got people talking about her next role this time in the low budget english film birthday girl i mean it's sort of a vibe comedy romantic comedy thriller um quirky weird film but it's um i think it's got a lot of heart to it as well which is what i liked about it you know the unlikely coupling of these two people yet i think there's something quite beautiful about how people who are so different can still be so right together for the hugely challenging task of playing a russian mail order bride nicole had to learn to speak and swear in russian nicole's radical conversion into the treacherous character won over even the toughest of critics i've been speaking such kind of terrible words and even acting such kind of a girl nicole kidman is still very beautiful and attractive woman and it is nice to see such a face of russian a russian lady in the cinema a celebrity sensation to achieve this metamorphosis nicole sought help from a woman who worked at the russian embassy in australia she'd never worked on a film before and i just said teach me teach me um russian teach me how to speak as a russian and so i didn't work with a dialect coach on the actual russian i just worked with a russian girl if transformations were becoming part of nicole's trademark she was about to up the ante in a role which would at last earn her the best actress oscar that had so far eluded her in 2002 she starred alongside meryl streep and julianne moore in the hours playing the tragically short-lived novelist virginia woolf i think i just loved her you know i just as i found out more and more about her um i just thought how much i admired her and respected her and was fascinated by it i mean she's fascinating and her ability to put her thoughts and her struggle and all of the ideas that she had about life and connections and into these stories it's just wonderful while virginia woolf was a great novelist she certainly wasn't known for her great physical beauty such was nicole's dedication she surprised the film's producers by insisting that she substantially alter her appearance for the role for the hours nicole wore a prosthetic nose which made her almost unrecognizable as the famous beauty we know and love i never watched daily so i just saw the makeup test really and then after that i didn't give it a second thought i basically you know it was more just about i didn't want to be overwhelmed or intimidated by her too much because at first it was daunting and then i went no no i've just got to be true to this woman got to find her i've got to step in and just do it you know and not monitor or sense or anything nicole's portrayal of virginia woolf was acclaimed by film critics worldwide hollywood has a history of giving oscars to actors who actually deserve them for previous films or better performances like elizabeth taylor winning for butterfield eight when she was much more interesting in cat and hot in roof or suddenly last summer and around the time of the hours nicole kidman also made films like dogville which is a much more interesting film but the academy likes a bit of literary illusion so the hours wins out the hours was such a success that when 2003's golden globe awards rolled around nicole found herself in competition with her own co-stars meryl streep and julianne moore the golden globes however were just a warm up for the big event on oscar night nicole was honoured with her first academy award for best actress having reached this important milestone in her career nicole was faced with the difficult choice of what project to take on next it's very difficult to not get distorted in your view of where you want to go and what you want to do and i think you just constantly have to come back to the simplicity of i want to work with interesting people i want to work with people that have something to say and try to do films that are relevant you know to what you're feeling at this time i know that sounds sort of like waffle but it actually has some meaning to me [Music] if nicole had played a supporting role to tom cruise throughout their marriage she had now well and truly come into her own with an oscar and a golden globe win for the hours she was presented with her own star on the hollywood walk of fame in 2003 and was being praised by one of the most powerful women in hollywood what really happens with nicole is that her entire body changes her voice changes and she literally becomes invisible and all you see is virginia woolf and this to me is amazing because we all know that nicole kidman could have become a giant star just based on her looks but instead she has become a giant star based on her enormous talent she is a simply brilliant actress she wasted no time in testing her versatility even further by signing up for three very different films dogville the human stain and cold mountain the three projects would see nicole working in very diverse locations from the bare sound stage of lars von trier's dog bill to the farmland of rural romania there is something beautiful about being instead of in a studio being out in the mountains and we were in the mountains of romania and we were working um in this beautiful sort of fresh air with trees i mean the conditions were extreme but at the same time i'm much more an outdoors person than an indoor person so if it's a choice between a studio and a location i'll take the location anytime after the grueling process of making three films in rapid succession came the grueling job of flying around the world to promote them in between filming her next project she managed to squeeze in some family time i'm in the process of finishing step for wise and then i'm going back to my mom and dad and my dad's coming over to see me in a week so and my sister just had another baby so she's coming over in three weeks to new york a rather less joyful part of nicole's life was the constant torrent of tabloid gossip directed at her rumors were doing the rounds that she and her cold mountain co-star jude law had an affair while making the film causing the breakup of his marriage to sadie frost nicole denied the rumors and successfully sued british newspapers the sun and the daily mail donating the proceeds to charity but then having taken over from julia roberts as the highest paid actress in hollywood she could afford to not only could she now command more than 20 million dollars per movie she was also riding high on her status as the world's number one fashion icon even more impressively and annoyingly choosing just the right outfit seemed to come effortlessly to nicole pretty decisive i just sort of see a dress that i like and i go that's what i'm going to wear i don't put an enormous amount of um deliberation into it and i but i just sort of know what i like and i go yeah that seems like i would feel comfortable in it i do like to be able to sit down in it and i like to be able to eaten it her porcelain skin immaculate style and perfect poise had long been drawing comparisons with classic golden age beauties like audrey hepburn and her statuesque frame had made her the favorite clothes horse of top designers like karl lagerfeld and valenciaga in 2004 nicole was crowned woman of the year at the l style awards once again she was playing down her style queen status i feel very uncomfortable doing these things sitting talking to a camera and not being there able to party so i've got my own little pathetic bottle of champagne my own glass and i'm gonna sit here and um and have a toast the same year nicole signed a deal to become the face of chanel number five perfume and featured in a 42 million dollar three-minute film directed by basmerman to promote the fragrance her reported fee of around 3.7 million dollars has made her the highest paid actor on record earning more than 1 million dollars per minute of screen time but having reached the pinnacle of her career in terms of earnings and celebrity status she was still hungry for new challenges in her film work and her next big challenge came in the shape of her 2004 movie birth directed by jonathan glazer and co-starring lauren bacall it's centered on a woman who becomes convinced that a ten-year-old boy is the reincarnation of her dead husband the film which involves nicole taking a bath with the boy asked more questions than it answered and sparked a wave of controversy there was a lot of hoo-ha at the time because the ten-year-old boys got a man trapped inside his body and there are scenes there's a scene particularly in the bath with nicole kidman and the boy but it's shot very carefully they're hardly in the same room when they're actually shooting it and i think it was really a bit of a storm in a teacup i love to make films that cause discussion which is why i don't like to actually answer specifically what does this mean or because particularly on something like this people debate it and they all have a different you know was was it really her husband or was it i mean there's it's divided then after starring in remakes of the stepford wives and 60s comedy series bewitched nicole moved on to some more conventional material a good old-fashioned thriller the interpreter directed by sydney pollock and co-starring sean penn would be the first movie ever filmed inside the world famous united nations building in new york it's an honor actually to be shooting again and we shoot on the weekends so that everything can still get done during the week the united nations itself had been playing an increasingly important role in nicole's off-screen life having been involved with unicef for almost 15 years she was soon to be appointed as a goodwill ambassador for unifem the united nations development fund for women we're here today because nicole kidman has agreed to become a different kind of un interpreter an interpreter of the united nations message that we will not achieve our human development ambitions until women are able to participate fully in the process i for one am very pleased that ms kidman has accepted uniforms invitation to become a united nations goodwill ambassador nicole had first become aware of the united nations development fund for women after her mother heard a program on the radio about the work that unifem was doing in cambodia to create economic opportunities for rural women by reviving traditional skills and this this really moved me um and it was at that point that i tracked down who was the head of unifem this woman here and i called her up and i said listen um i heard about some of this work i don't know what else you're doing for women but i would very much like to be able to help you and be involved in any way that i can nicole's role as unifem's goodwill ambassador has taken her even further afield than her most out of the way film shoots but even her film roles still serve to remind nicole of the reason she has taken on this important charity work i did a film the human dane where i went and met with a lot of women in shelters abuse shelters and i think the stories that i heard there and this was in america were so disturbing um that that probably as i was saying the layer upon layer of things that lead you to something like this a position like this so i know that that those stories very much contributed to me going i have to find a way in which i can somehow help these people and i think when you've been given a lot in life it's very much your duty to to find the places where you can give back perhaps it was all that good karma that brought her the romantic reward she'd failed to find since splitting with tom in 2000 [Music] after a string of rumored romances with stars like robbie williams adrian brodie and lenny kravitz nicole finally met country singer keith urban at a gala dinner in los angeles honoring noted australians in 2005. rumors of a romance started circulating soon after when nick and keith were spotted dining out together and nicole even joined him on tour it wasn't long before the pair went public and on june 25 2006 a week after nicole's 39th birthday they were married at the cardinal cerretti memorial chapel in the grounds of st patrick's estate in sydney for the whole week leading up to the marriage australia's paparazzi had been camped outside her parents home thank you so much [Music] thank you [Music] thank you family and friends of the bride and groom were pretty happy about the way things had turned out too i feel very proud of my young brother and this the circle's closed it's wonderful wonderful absolutely amazing love everywhere of course we cried we cried we laughed we danced we sang sadly within four months of their wedding nicole's new husband had checked himself into the betty ford center the country megastar had publicly acknowledged a former addiction to cocaine and released a statement expressing his regret for the hurt his relapse had caused nicole and his family nicole stood by her man and with her unwavering support keith stayed the course and started the long road to recovery at an australian awards show in 2007 he paid tribute to her strength and loyalty it wouldn't exist without my wife she was the inspiration for it so i dedicate this [Applause] he'd written a song for her on his love pain and the whole crazy thing album and it found stability in their marriage which had to endure long periods of separation due to their work commitments i mean the same as any married couple where you've got both husband and wife working i mean it's that's pretty normal in the sense that it's very hard i mean you've got other other married couples that have got kids and all this other stuff and they managed to make it work so you know for us it's much easier but but it still requires making time that's that's the common thread in all relationships is you don't find time you make the time in nicole and keith's case making time was particularly difficult while keith was working on his album and preparing to go on tour nicole was on the red carpet promoting her latest collaboration with her dead calm director george miller instead of putting her in front of the camera their latest venture took her behind the microphone to lend her voice to a singing penguin in the animated smash hit happy feet next she was battling marauding aliens in action thriller the invasion a remake of sci-fi classic the invasion of the body snatchers i loved the idea of playing a woman and in an action film but set in the science fiction genre alien is one of my favorite films so uh sigourney weaver is the coolest but the shoot was perhaps a little more action-packed than nicole had hoped we were doing a stunt and some of this guy was driving and and he drove the car and we smashed into a a huge telegraph pole so i was yeah i was knocked out and i broke two ribs but at least her injury wasn't completely in vain i said to them you've got to put this in the movie because there's no way i'm going to have gone through all of this um and not have it in the movie and there it is in the movie nicole's next movie was fortunately a little more sedate she teamed up with jack black and jennifer jason lee for the family drama margot at the wedding for her next trick nicole threw herself into unfamiliar territory portraying the sinister mrs coulter in the fantasy epic the golden compass gave nicole her first opportunity to play a villain since to die for back in 1995. obviously you know in my career what i'm looking to do is shake things up i don't like doing the same thing over and over i certainly don't choose things just for the sake of being liked or anything i'm i'm very into working with interesting directors and and seeking out things that are different and i saw this as something different in recent years particularly nicole seems to have had much more success both critically and almost commercially with her small indie films than she has with the big budget things but even with the big budget film like golden compass she's still going for interesting challenging roles that have that can show something different about her and what i liked about golden compass is that she's playing a really taboo character she's playing an evil mother in the same year that she makes a huge blockbuster like the golden compass she also makes a film like margot at the wedding which is a tiny little ensemble film just for the art house circuit she takes a fraction of the of the pay that she normally does and it it's not a particularly uh sympathetic or winning character but it's an interesting character and you can see why she does it because she really does believe in the script after that it was back to more familiar territory her next project teamed her up with her old friend and collaborator baz lerman and took her from the air-conditioned comfort of a studio to the blistering heat of australia's northern territory what's interesting about the northern territory of the 1930s was that it was a little bit of asia a little bit of the wild west a little bit of africa all mixed in a sort of natural creating a natural and very unique environment [Music] in australia nicole plays a british aristocrat who comes to australia and falls in love with hugh jackman's character an outback drover the hype surrounding the film was enormous but even a huge star like nicole found that the australian people still treat her as one of their own i was like in darwin everyone's the same you know they're very warm i'd go and get a facial and a massage and the girls in the in the beautician were just kind of just lovely and so i just think the warmth in which the country you just feel it throughout the whole country i understand why people come here and go they want to move here the warmth was turned up several notches when keith and nicole announced that they were expecting a baby soon after filming wrapped on australia i knew that they were pregnant and i think that's great news i think she's going to be an incredible mother and she seems like she's a real warm personality and i think they're going to be fantastic parents on monday the 7th of july 2008 the news came from nashville that nicole had given birth to a baby girl sunday rose kidman urban less than a month later nicole and keith were back in sydney proudly showing off their new addition to friends and family with two teenage children and a brand new baby to care for as well as her marriage to keith journalists were keen to know how she would go about balancing her family life with her career my family is my priority i don't think they're it's it's not really about the balance it's about that comes first and then um if something if these things fit in then i'll do them but i'm more than willing to walk away from a film or a project you know so they don't have to be separated from my family still managing to look as though she's just stepped out of hair and makeup after nearly 20 years of juggling the roles of mother movie star fashion icon and un ambassador nicole kidman clearly possesses the kind of focus and energy that most of us would kill for sometimes i say she's mad but i love her and what i mean by that that's not a madness but it's she's so vital and full of life and like like a lightning and a fireworks and an energy that you when you're around her whether you're on the set whether it's in a film whether she just comes around for a cup of tea it makes life a bit more exciting and light seems to bounce off the walls and you feel kind of excited you know tireless in her charity work nicole relishes her role as unifem goodwill ambassador which continues to draw attention to the plight of disadvantaged women around the world she is also a patron of the sydney children's hospital and in 2006 all her hard work was recognized with a companion of the order of australia australia's highest civilian honor during an interview back in 2003 nicole suggested that she might be thinking about opting for a quieter life i know though that i probably won't do this for the rest of my life there's other things that interest me and i think probably when i fall in love you know that's when i will stop doing as much of this because i will want to settle down again however after falling in love with keith and giving birth to sunday rose the girl from oz is showing no signs of slowing down with more film projects already in production she won't be heading off to the outback just yet [Music] you

Channel: Amplified - Classic Rock & Music History

Views: 27,042

Keywords: Amplified, amplified channel, music, pop culture, culture channel, documentaries, music documentaries, pop, film, music interviews, film interviews, nicole kidman interview, nicole kidman tom cruise, nicole kidman and keith urban, nicole kidman movies, nicole kidman oscar, interview, celebrity, celebrities, nicole kidman biography, nicole kidman documentary, nicole kidman humanitarian

Id: 0fPrupRedDo

Length: 52min 23sec (3143 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021