Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman AC (born 20 June 1967) is an Australian and American actress and producer. Known for her work in film and television productions across many genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards. She received the New York Film Festival Gala Tribute in 2012[2] and is the first Australian actor to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award honor.[3]
Nicole Kidman
- Australian
- American
Nicole Urban[1]
- Actress
- producer
1983–present
4
Antony Kidman (father)
Antonia Kidman (sister)
Kidman began her career in Australia with the 1983 film BMX Bandits. Her breakthrough came with lead roles in Dead Calm and the miniseries Bangkok Hilton (both 1989). She came to international prominence with a supporting role in Days of Thunder (1990), and soon gained greater recognition with starring parts in Far and Away (1992), To Die For (1995), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), The Others (2001), and Cold Mountain (2003). Kidman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002), receiving further Oscar nominations for Moulin Rouge! (2001), Rabbit Hole (2010), Lion (2016), and Being the Ricardos (2021). In addition to other mainstream projects such as The Golden Compass (2007), Australia (2008), Paddington (2014), Aquaman (2018), and Bombshell (2019), she is known for her work in small-scale and often experimental productions, such as Dogville (2003), Birth (2004), Margot at the Wedding (2007), The Paperboy (2012), Stoker (2013), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), Destroyer, and Boy Erased (both 2018).
Kidman's television roles include Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), Top of the Lake: China Girl (2017), The Undoing (2020), Nine Perfect Strangers (2021), and Special Ops: Lioness (2023). For the HBO series Big Little Lies (2017–2019), she received Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Limited Series as executive producer.
Kidman has served as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and UNIFEM since 2006. She was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in 2006. Kidman was married to actor Tom Cruise from 1990 to 2001, and has been married to country music singer Keith Urban since 2006. In 2010, she founded the production company Blossom Films. In 2004 and 2018, Time included her on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2020, The New York Times named her one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Early life[edit]
Nicole Mary Kidman was born on 20 June 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii,[4][5] while her Australian parents were temporarily in the United States on student visas.[6] Her mother, a nursing instructor and member of the Women's Electoral Lobby edited her husband's books; her father, Antony Kidman, was a biochemist, clinical psychologist, and author.[7] She also has a younger sister, Antonia Kidman, who is a journalist and TV presenter.[8] Having been born in the American state of Hawaii to Australian parents, Kidman holds dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.[9][10] She has English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.[11][12] Being born in Hawaii, she was given the Hawaiian name "Hōkūlani" ([hoːkuːˈlɐni]), meaning "heavenly star". The inspiration came from a baby elephant born around the same time at the Honolulu Zoo.[13]
When Kidman was born, her father was a graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He became a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. Opposed to the Vietnam War, her parents participated in anti-war protests while living in Washington, D.C., having moved there shortly after Kidman's birth.[14] Her family eventually returned to Australia three years later.[15] She grew up in Sydney where she attended Lane Cove Public School and North Sydney Girls' High School. She was enrolled in ballet at the age of three and showed her natural talent for acting during her primary and high school years.[16]
Kidman has said she first aspired to become an actress upon watching Margaret Hamilton's performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.[17] She revealed that she was timid as a child, saying, "I am very shy – really shy – I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don't like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don't like going to a party by myself."[18] During her teenage years, she attended the Phillip Street Theatre, alongside fellow actress Naomi Watts, and the Australian Theatre for Young People, where she took up drama and mime as she found acting to be a refuge. Owing to her fair skin and naturally red hair, the sun drove her to rehearse in the halls of the theatre.[16] A regular at the Phillip Street Theatre, she was encouraged to pursue acting full-time, which she did by dropping out of high school.[11][15]
Career[edit]
Early work and breakthrough (1983–1994)[edit]
In 1983, 16-year-old Kidman made her film debut in a remake of the Australian holiday classic Bush Christmas.[11] By the end of that year, she had a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek. In 1984, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which caused Kidman to halt her acting work temporarily while she studied massage therapy to help her mother with physical therapy.[19] She began gaining recognition during this decade after appearing in several Australian films, such as the action comedy BMX Bandits (1983) and the romantic comedy Windrider (1986).[20] Throughout the rest of the 1980s, she appeared in various Australian television programs, including the 1987 miniseries Vietnam, for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award.[21]
Kidman next appeared in the Australian film Emerald City (1988), based on the play of the same name, which earned her a second Australian Film Institute Award. She then starred alongside Sam Neill in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm as Rae Ingram, the wife of a naval officer who is menaced by a castaway at sea, played by Billy Zane. The film proved to be her breakthrough role, and was one of the first films for which she gained international recognition.[22] Regarding her performance, Variety commented how "throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the character of Rae real tenacity and energy."[23] Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together."[24] She followed that up with the Australian miniseries Bangkok Hilton before moving on to star alongside her then-boyfriend and future ex-husband, Tom Cruise, in the 1990 sports action film Days of Thunder, as a young doctor who falls in love with a NASCAR driver. Considered to be her international breakout film, it was among the highest-grossing films of the year.[25]
In 1991, Kidman co-starred alongside Thandiwe Newton and former classmate Naomi Watts in the Australian independent film Flirting.[26] They portrayed high school girls in this coming of age story, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film.[27] That same year, her work in the film Billy Bathgate earned Kidman her first Golden Globe Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. The New York Times, in its film review, called her "a beauty with, it seems, a sense of humor".[28] The following year, she and Cruise re-teamed for Ron Howard's Irish epic Far and Away (1992), which was a modest critical and commercial success.[29][30][31] In 1993, she starred in the thriller Malice, opposite Alec Baldwin, and the drama My Life, opposite Michael Keaton.[32][33]
Critical acclaim and worldwide recognition (1995–2003)[edit]
In 1995, Kidman played Dr. Chase Meridian, the damsel in distress, in the superhero film Batman Forever, opposite Val Kilmer as the film's title character. That same year, she starred in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed dark comedy To Die For, in which she played the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone. Regarding her performance, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said "[she] brings to the role layers of meaning, intention and impulse. Telling her story in close-up – as she does throughout the film – Kidman lets you see the calculation, the wheels turning, the transparent efforts to charm that succeed in charming all the same."[34] For her performance in the film, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. In the following years, she appeared alongside Barbara Hershey and John Malkovich in The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the novel of the same name, and starred in The Peacemaker (1997) as nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly, opposite George Clooney. The latter film grossed US$110 million worldwide.[35][36] In 1998, she starred alongside Sandra Bullock in the romantic comedy Practical Magic as two witch sisters who face a threatening curse that prevents them from finding lasting love. While the film opened at the top of the charts during its North American opening weekend, it was a commercial failure at the box-offce.[37][38] She returned to the stage that same year for the David Hare play The Blue Room, which opened in London.[39] For her performance, she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress.[40]
According to the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which assigns film scores based on critic reviews and audience reception, some of Kidman's highest-scoring films include Paddington (2014), Flirting (1990), To Die For (1995), Rabbit Hole (2010), Lion (2016), The Others (2001), The Family Fang (2015), Dead Calm (1989), Boy Erased (2018), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) and The Northman (2022).[267] Her most financially successful films include Aquaman (2018) and its sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), Happy Feet (2006), The Golden Compass (2008), Batman Forever (1995) and Paddington (2014), as listed by the box office tracking website The Numbers as her highest-grossing films.[268] Her other screen credits include:
Kidman has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following:
In 2003, Kidman received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her achievements in the motion picture industry.[269][270] In addition to her Academy Award for Best Actress win, she has received many other awards and nominations for her performances on the screen and stage, including four additional Academy Award nominations, one BAFTA Award from five nominations, two Laurence Olivier Award nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards from three nominations, a Screen Actors Guild Award from fifteen nominations, three Critics' Choice Awards from fifteen nominations and six Golden Globe Awards from seventeen nominations, among various others.[271][40][90]