In the glow of new motherhood, Nicole Kidman speaks to Jenny Cooney Carrillo about her joy at being a mother and the pride she feels in her role in the much-anticipated epic Australia..
See Nicole Kidman throughout her career
“I never thought that I would get pregnant and give birth to a child, but it happened on this movie,” an emotional Nicole says. The 41-year-old actress is talking to us exclusively from London, where she is rehearsing the musical film Nine, inspired by the 1963 Fellini movie 8½ and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
During our chat and previous interviews on the set of Australia in Kununurra, WA, and Sydney, Nicole touches on everything from her great Australian movie role opposite Hugh Jackman and the challenges that came with this labour of love, to the occasional revelation about her other new role as Sunday’s mum.
The fiercely protective and surprisingly shy actress can’t help but let us in on how she’s feeling at this blessed time in her life. “It’s exhausting,” she acknowledges, “but I think at this age it’s more like” — she lets out a huge, satisfied sigh — “spellbinding for me. To be given this again is a beautiful thing. To have raised Bella and Connor since I was 25 and now to be able to do it again at 41…wow!”
But I’m ready and I love children, and love the connection and to be needed. Who doesn’t want to be needed?” she muses. “And that’s the thing for my character, Lady Sarah Ashley, in the film, because she also finds there is a place in the world where she is really needed by these two males.”
The two males Nicole is referring to are her ruggedly handsome Aussie co-star Hugh Jackman, who plays the drover that sweeps her character off her feet, and 11-year-old Aboriginal actor Brandon Walters, who plays her surrogate son, Nullah, and became like a son to her during filming.
Set in northern Australia just before World War II, Australia follows the journey of Lady Ashley, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling cattle station in the outback and reluctantly makes a pact with a cattle drover (Hugh) to protect her new property from a takeover plot by cattle baron King Carney (played by Bryan Brown). The pair band together with an unlikely group, including her alcoholic accountant (Jack Thompson) and young Nullah, to drive 2000 head of cattle over unforgiving terrain to Darwin, where they experience the bombing of the city by the Japanese.
“As a kid, I grew up watching Australian films that were accepted around the world, like Gallipoli, The Man from Snowy River and My Brilliant Career — all those films and actors moulded and inspired me,” Nicole reflects. “I really wanted to make a film like that as a kid, so when we were filming this one, I’d look at Baz and Hugh sometimes and go, ‘Look, we’re doing it!’
“Hopefully, the next generation will watch our movie and feel the same way because it is very much a celebration of our country and our landscape, and the pain and love and survivor aspect of what we are as Australians.”
Nicole has certainly had more than her fair share of pain, love and survival, and much of it she’s experienced in the glare of the public eye as the world watched the roller-coaster of her life unfold — her marriage to superstar Tom Cruise in 1990, the adoption of their two children Bella, now 15, and Connor, 13, her split with Tom in 2001, her Oscar for The Hours, her love story with singer Keith Urban, their fairytale Sydney wedding in 2006 and the arrival of Sunday Rose on July 7.
See Nicole Kidman throughout her career
Your Say: Tell us what you think of Nicole Kidman below…
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
