The beautiful Nicole Kidman stole the spotlight at screenings for her two upcoming films: "Dogville," co-starring Chloe Sevigny and "The Human Stain," co-starring Anthony Hopkins.
In "The Human Stain," Nicole plays a woman with a painful past, who has a scandalous love affair with Anthony Hopkins.
The Oscar winner revealed where she found the inspiration to play a battered woman. She says, "I went to a woman's shelter. I was very fortunate to find a shelter that allowed me in and two particular women that were very open to me."
Nicole reveals that playing a mother whose two children die was incredibly emotional. She says, "I mean a woman, a mother, doesn’t recover. I wouldn’t ever recover."
Nicole, who shares custody of her own two kids with Tom Cruise, says motherhood is her most challenging role. She says, "Who knows how they are going to turn out ultimately. But I think they’re great children. There is a lot of guilt with motherhood; you always think you’re doing everything wrong."
But how does Nicole feel about finding Mr. Right? She says, "I don’t know. Now you make me blush."
It turns out even Nicole Kidman is only human.
I feel guilty, says Nicole
SHE has turned down roles for the sake of her children. Yet Nicole Kidman has admitted she feels guilty about the way they are being brought up.
Nicole says her children have a "complicated" life.
The Oscar-winning actress adopted Conor, eight, and Isabella, 11, with ex-husband Tom Cruise during their 10-year marriage. The youngsters now divide their time between both parents' Los Angeles homes, and also spend time in Sydney with Kidman.
"My kids come to the film sets and they give their opinion in terms of the different characters I play," she said at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada.
"They have a complicated life, and it's something I feel guilty for."
The 36-year-old actor was promoting her latest film, The Human Stain, alongside co-star Anthony Hopkins at the festival.
She said there were limits to what the children were allowed to observe in her work.
But she must be doing something right, because one of her children - she won't say which - wants to follow in her footsteps and pursue an acting career.
Kidman said her other child "couldn't think of anything worse".
After the premiere Kidman returned to New York where she is filming The Stepford Wives alongside Bette Midler.
In movies or life, age no barrier to love, Nicole Kidman says
TORONTO (CP) - Nicole Kidman brought something other that undeniable star power to the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday - hope for older men.
In The Human Stain, the 36-year-old Australian actress has a passionate affair with an older man, Anthony Hopkins playing a widowed college professor who's 71. "Age doesn't matter," she declares absolutely at an evening press conference when asked if audiences will accept her in such a situation.
"The reason people are drawn together, the reason people choose each other, we never know."
Kidman believes that without all the exterior forces working against them, the relationship of the two characters in The Human Stain definitely could have worked, even though both people were so emotionally damaged.
"The different people that enter into your life at different times, they enter into it . . . because you allow them, they enter because of timing, they enter because of a connection between two people, not the way in which their bodies look."
She says people who operate on strictly physical level probably have very superficial relationships that don't stand a chance.
"A 70-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, a 25-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman, bring it on! It doesn't matter!"
She also dismissed questions about whether she can be believable as a janitor and a farmhand, which is what her secretive character does in The Human Stain.
"I cleaned toilets when I was an usherette in Sydney and my hands got very dirty. Whether you believe me or not, I tried to do the best I could to honour her as a woman."
And while her accountant may disagree, Kidman says acting is not like work to her, that trying to make pieces of art is something she loves to do.
"There's no drive behind it. It's more an acceptance of what my life is and that is being an actress and somebody who absolutely loves what they get to do. And would do it whether you pay me, which sometimes happens, or whether you don't pay me, which also happens. Because I'm dedicated to it."
Still, she is coming off three consecutive roles in which she played dark and damaged women - festival entries Robert Benton's The Human Stain and Lars von Trier's Dogville, and last year's The Hours for which she won the Academy Award.
And that means she has to shift gears, which is why her next film is a comedy, a lighthearted remake of the 1970s horror movie The Stepford Wives.
"It's tough being funny!" she declares with a hearty laugh. And, by the way, reports of her playing the Elizabeth Montgomery part in a film version of the old TV sitcom Bewitched are premature. She says she hasn't yet committed to it and if she did, Samantha's famous magical nose-twitch would probably be computer-generated.
She confirms that she still suffers from bouts of stage fright, not only before doing theatrical roles, but when she first commits to choosing a film, and sometimes she has to back out. She says Meryl Streep - with whom she co-starred in The Hours - often has the same fear.
"I'm actually desperate to do a play again within the next 18 months because if I don't do it I'll never go back onstage. And I want to do it."
She says although she served as a producer, because of that fear of not being in the proper emotional state at the time, she had to bow out of the leading role that Meg Ryan took in Jane Campion's upcoming psychological thriller In the Cut.
"It was a very painful thing to give up," she admits. "But at the same time I was very glad for Meg Ryan."
As for life after Oscar, Kidman says it didn't sink in until she saw for herself what a global event the Academy Awards were.
"I've realized just from my travels, the awareness of it is worldwide."
She says, too, she is especially glad to have won for playing Virginia Woolf.
"I have a strange relationship with Miss Woolf."
Nicole Kidman brought something other that undeniable star power to the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday - hope for older men.
In The Human Stain, the 36-year-old Australian actress has a passionate affair with an older man, Anthony Hopkins playing a widowed college professor who's 71. "Age doesn't matter," she declares absolutely at an evening press conference when asked if audiences will accept her in such a situation.
"The reason people are drawn together, the reason people choose each other, we never know."
Kidman believes that without all the exterior forces working against them, the relationship of the two characters in The Human Stain definitely could have worked, even though both people were so emotionally damaged.
"The different people that enter into your life at different times, they enter into it ... because you allow them, they enter because of timing, they enter because of a connection between two people, not the way in which their bodies look."
She says people who operate on strictly physical level probably have very superficial relationships that don't stand a chance.
"A 70-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, a 25-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman, bring it on! It doesn't matter!"
She also dismissed questions about whether she can be believable as a janitor and a farmhand, which is what her secretive character does in The Human Stain.
"I cleaned toilets when I was an usherette in Sydney and my hands got very dirty. Whether you believe me or not, I tried to do the best I could to honour her as a woman."
And while her accountant may disagree, Kidman says acting is not like work to her, that trying to make pieces of art is something she loves to do.
"There's no drive behind it. It's more an acceptance of what my life is and that is being an actress and somebody who absolutely loves what they get to do. And would do it whether you pay me, which sometimes happens, or whether you don't pay me, which also happens. Because I'm dedicated to it."
Still, she is coming off three consecutive roles in which she played dark and damaged women - festival entries Robert Benton's The Human Stain and Lars von Trier's Dogville, and last year's The Hours for which she won the Academy Award.
And that means she has to shift gears, which is why her next film is a comedy, a lighthearted remake of the 1970s horror movie The Stepford Wives.
"It's tough being funny!" she declares with a hearty laugh. And, by the way, reports of her playing the Elizabeth Montgomery part in a film version of the old TV sitcom Bewitched are premature. She says she hasn't yet committed to it and if she did, Samantha's famous magical nose-twitch would probably be computer-generated.
She confirms that she still suffers from bouts of stage fright, not only before doing theatrical roles, but when she first commits to choosing a film, and sometimes she has to back out. She says Meryl Streep - with whom she co-starred in The Hours - often has the same fear.
"I'm actually desperate to do a play again within the next 18 months because if I don't do it I'll never go back onstage. And I want to do it."
She says although she served as a producer, because of that fear of not being in the proper emotional state at the time, she had to bow out of the leading role that Meg Ryan took in Jane Campion's upcoming psychological thriller In the Cut.
"It was a very painful thing to give up," she admits. "But at the same time I was very glad for Meg Ryan."
As for life after Oscar, Kidman says it didn't sink in until she saw for herself what a global event the Academy Awards were.
"I've realized just from my travels, the awareness of it is worldwide."
She says, too, she is especially glad to have won for playing Virginia Woolf.
"I have a strange relationship with Miss Woolf."
I have some pictures Of Nic at the premiere of Dogville and The Human Stain coming up asap.