The interviews are expectantly rescheduled. Her few public appearances are solely in support of her new movie, and a press conference is the last place Nicole Kidman wants to be.
A public divorce battle between Kidman and her celebrity husband Tom Cruise has put her in an uncomfortable spotlight. It's clear her preference is to avoid any situations that might invite questions about the troubled marriage.
In a perfect world, Kidman wouldn't have to meet the press until after all the public squabbles between her and Cruise are over. But duty requires her to help promote her new movie, the period musical Moulin Rouge.
Kidman's costar, Ewan McGregor, is away in Europe shooting a film, and the threat of an actor's strike means he must stay and finish it. So, while her two children spend Mother's Day swimming in a rooftop pool, Kidman mans a solo press conference on the first floor of a Los Angeles hotel. It's the last place she wants to be.
In Moulin Rouge, Kidman plays Satine, the Sparkling Diamond, the star and courtesan of the Moulin Rouge club. Satine knows what she wants out of life. That is, until she unexpectedly falls in love with a star-struck poet (McGregor).
Kidman enters the hotel ballroom flashing her best smile. If she hadn't mentioned how Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann persuaded her not to back out of the press conference, you'd think she wanted to be here. Still, the tension is clear. At any moment, you expect her to get up and leave.
But Kidman's Moulin Rouge performance proves she's the consummate actress. She answers questions politely, talks about her Mother's Day breakfast with her children Connor Anthony, 6, and Isabella Jane, 8, and tells stories about working with Stanley Kubrick during the making of Eyes Wide Shut.
Earlier in the afternoon, members of the press watched Moulin Rouge at a screening of the film on the Fox studio lot. Kidman sings from atop an elephant. She swings over the club's main room. She's funny and sexy as the vamping Satine. It's a glorious performance.
The same thing can be said about her press conference demeanor. It's as if Kidman wasn't caught in the dilemma of handling a personal crisis while promoting a chancy new movie.
Reporters have come to squeeze more information for the public rumor mill. It's a task that's not exactly easy.
"Nicole!" yells out one reporter. "Was it nervous to sing?"
Kidman answers with relief. Any question that doesn't include the words "Tom Cruise" offers welcome relief.
Kidman's discussion of voice lessons and her initial interest in Moulin Rouge isn't the reason why we members of the press sat around and waited in a hotel conference room after our interviews with Kidman were cancelled.
"Baz sent me some flowers when I was doing this play backstage with a note saying, 'I have this great character for you. She sings, she dances and then she dies,' " Kidman says. "And that peaked my interest."
Her voice turns more buoyant. Her eyes sparkle brighter. The press conference is almost over.
By the time of the final question, Kidman proves that the cult of celebrity is about maintaining a public distance and a glossy veneer. In Moulin Rouge, she's a sexy chanteuse clad in glittering costumed and revealing undergarments. In person, her hair is pulled back in a sensible ponytail and she wears an any-person wardrobe of tank top and blue jeans.
Hours earlier, during the film screening, Kidman was the poster girl of haute couture fashion. In person, she looks strictly Banana Republic.
If there's one impact of Kidman's strained press conference, it's that the glow of stardom fades quickly into the everyday reality of the Hollywood publicity machine. She's larger than life in Moulin Rouge. But at this hotel press conference, she looks like someone I'd pass in a grocery store aisle.
Whatever moviemade fantasies Moulin Rouge gave me earlier in the day, meeting Kidman has taken them all away. By the time she finishes signing autographs and prepares to leave the room, I wish my contact with her had been limited to the film itself.
The Kidman I really like is the one I first met on the big screen. ©
