by Paul Fischer
by
Paul Fischer
"I'm terribly jet-lagged," she said, yet Nicole
Kidman's beauty natural allure masked any 
obvious
exhaustion she might have felt, greeting the US press corps in Los Angeles. Her
hair was kept simple and she wore a striped, French-looking outfit. "Can't
you tell? It's for Moulin Rouge", she says smilingly.
Being Mothers Day here in Los Angeles, she must have wished she could be doing anything but talking to the press. She managed to say hi to her mum the day before and at least, here in Beverly Hills' L'Ermitage Hotel, her children were with her. "Thank God there's a swimming pool here; they're having a ball splashing around." Beyond that reference to her private life, Nicole was happy to spend time talking about Moulin Rouge, and her work. Enough has been written about what she now simply refers to as 'The Divorce'. "I've never been in this position before. It feels slightly surreal. I feel very exposed. I know one day I'll look back at this period and be able to go, 'Weeeee!' " She laughed out loud. "This has been a big year for me."
Perhaps that year may have been rocky on the private side, but
the tenacious actress has been able to venture deep into her work, which is why
she is enjoying (or not) a frenetic promotional schedule for Moulin Rouge,
Baz Luhrmann's
stylized musical romance set in 1890's Paris. "I do feel really proud of
this film. We worked really hard on it. We waited a long time for it to be finished.
I think it is important to promote it because it is not something a public says:
'Yes, this is what we want to go and see.' It's a musical. We sing a lot of the
film. It's very hard to describe in two sentences. Yet, the reaction that we are
getting from almost everyone who sees it is that they have never seen anything
like it, and they enjoy it. So 
that
is exciting. I'm just extremely proud of it and glad that I was able to make a
movie with Baz and Ewan McGregor and everybody."
Moulin Rouge is a zesty and audacious musical extravaganza set in the
infamous Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris' Montmartre district. Kidman plays sultry
courtesan Satine, nicknamed The Sparkling Diamond, who finds herself torn between
her love for the impoverished writer Christian, played by Ewan McGregor, and her
lust for the riches offered by an obsessed fan played by Richard Roxburgh.
Garish and over-the-top, Kidman's first entrance - singing "Diamonds are
a Girl's Best Friend" - defines the tone of director Luhrmann' s vision.
Here was a movie fraught with risk, and it was precisely that which attracted
Kidman to this unique enterprise, because "I'm drawn to things like that",
she laughs. Wanting to play this character had as much to do with working with
Luhrmann, she also insists. "I have a great belief in him as a director and
I've known him and his work for many years." Not that getting the role was
a piece of cake by any means. Luhrmann saw the actress on stage in New York doing
The Blue Room. "He'd sent me flowers backstage with a note saying:
I have this great character for you to play: She sings, she dances and then she
dies." That certainly piqued her interest. After the two met, Kidman had
to audition. After all, who "knew if I could sing like that? When I got the
role I was 
just
floored, because to get a role where you actually get the opportunity of doing
something so unusual was such a gift."
Then, she hastens to add, the reality of playing this character this way, set in. "When we got to Sydney we had to do a read-through, but of course with a read-through on a musical, you're not just reading lines, you've got to sing, and unaccompanied; it's very confronting and leaves one feeling very exposed", the actress concedes. Yet for Nicole, an actress who has always thrived on artistic perfection, that was challenging and rewarding, "because Baz is the kind of director who pushes you early on in the piece, so that by the time you start to film, you're so comfortable with what you're doing, you're ready to try and do anything." Including singing, and going back to the basics of acting, she further explains. "It was like drama school all over again, because we had singing class and dance class. Then we'd have a coffee break and we'd be off doing improvisational stuff. We also lived in this big house and it was drama school all over again."
Many
of the key moments in Moulin Rouge involve emotional sequences told through
music, a device that Luhrmann uses effectively. For Nicole, conveying emotion
musically was a challenge the actress willingly embraced. "The one thing
that Baz insisted from the outset, is that for the emotion to continue even once
the singing starts. He didn't want us to take time out for the singing, as it
were and the audience goes: Now let's back into the film. He wanted to keep the
plot, love story and emotions that were being depicted, present and alive during
those scenes, so that people wouldn't get bored." Kidman adds laughingly
that there's no doubt in her mind that Luhrmann achieved that aspiration. "One
thing I haven't heard someone say about the film is that it's boring. Even with
the tango sequence and those kinds of scenes, it's amazing how you can depict
strong emotions like jealousy, love or obsession through music and dance, far
more readily. Strangely enough, once we embrace that concept doing the love scenes
and singing 'Come what may' to each other, somehow made it easier, in a strange
way." Not quite as easy, however, was stepping into Marilyn Monroe's
shoes performing and re-defining "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend."
"That was a nightmare, because I just thought: What is this film going to
be? But Marilyn does the quintessential number there which is obviously so iconic.
But there's something to be said about throwing yourself into it and going: OK
Baz, you think it's going to work, great. We tried different ways of doing
it and came up with the particular way you see it in the movie, less breathy than
Marilyn, more of a chest voice and less classic in a way. Ours is raunchier. But
I still can't believe we tried all of this, but that's what kind of fun about
it, 
because
in terms of Baz as a director, he's both very enthusiastic yet naïve in his
approach to things, because he thinks anything's possible."
That first entrance of Nicole's not only defines Luhrmann' s unique style and tone, but also presents Kidman as the personification of a movie star. Though the actress feels uncomfortable with that label, asked to comment on other movie stars that may have inspired her in preparing for this film, Kidman is unhesitating in her response. "Rita Hayworth is it", she exclaims. "I just watch her and think: Wow! I mean, she's so beautiful, so charismatic and an extraordinary dancer. She just takes your breath away as a performer. I never used to pay that much attention before, and I used to be more into Ingrid Bergman and Katherine Hepburn, but suddenly I look at Marilyn Monroe, Cyd Charise, Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich, and they're all extraordinary. So I have enormous respect for all those women now, and their talent, right across the board." To prepare for Moulin Rouge, Nicole watched "almost all of the musicals I could lay my hand on" from Hollywood's Golden Age, but also points out that this is a "post-modernist musical" and as such borrows from contemporary sources and references "which you seem to discover after more than one viewing. Even I didn't get them all, because my job was to find the truth of my character, and not to be limited by trying to achieve things with it."
Perhaps this has much to do with Kidman's own approach to her work. When we
first met 15 years ago, there was even then, an inherently girlish enthusiasm
that the then 16-year old actress had for her profession. Much has changed since
then, but not necessarily her girlish enthusiasm for her work. "I'd say I
was more passionate now and I still just love to act and I am committed to it.
I think it is a great art form, I don't believe I putting it down as such.
It's still very easy to be corrupted in anything and there are times when
you feel it happening and times when it does happen and you're 
unaware
of it but you can still pull yourself back and say: This is why I love doing it."
Kidman still loves to act, she continues, "because I get to reach out to
a whole lot of people with ideas, sometimes profound ideas and sometimes they
work and sometimes they don't. But you still get to work with some of the most
brilliant people in the world and you help to facilitate extraordinary ideas.
So I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be working with these people."
Still as genuinely humble at 31 as she was at 16, Nicole has grown up on screen and audiences have seen her remarkable transformation. And there's more to come, from Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar's dark thriller The Darkness, to her upcoming portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, through to her next film with Lars von Trier. She still insists on pushing the envelope that little bit further, and the actress happily insists that she wouldn't have it any other way.