 |
Photo By Steve Ramos
|
Riding a wave of cinematic success, Nicole Kidman is
the guest of honor as Sundance debuts her film,
Birthday Girl.
|
There was a time when a press conference was the last place Nicole Kidman wanted to be. She was an actress caught in the headlights of a public divorce battle from her celebrity husband Tom Cruise. That was before Kidman's breakout performances in the period musical Moulin Rouge and The Others, a traditional English Gothic.
Eager to promote her new film, the comic thriller Birthday Girl, Kidman came to the Sundance Film Festival on a wave of critical acclaim. Her trip to Sundance is nothing short of a victory lap.
Photographers, journalists and TV cameramen pack an afternoon press conference at a Park City, Utah, hotel. Birthday Girl director Jez Butterworth and co-star Ben Chaplin join Kidman at a large table. It might as well have been a solo press conference. All eyes are on Kidman. Her slightest gesture generates a flurry of flashbulbs.
Questions focus on Kidman, her recent work and her Birthday Girl performance as a Russian mail-order bride. Nobody is interested in her failed marriage.
"I had to learn to speak Russian," a smiling Kidman says, talking about her Birthday Girl role. "That was hard."
"Nicole's victory lap is very good, actually," Butterworth says, speaking after the festival. "She had a tremendous year with her work, and I think she's shown the world that she's utterly a star in her own right."
In Moulin Rouge, Kidman is a sexy chanteuse dressed in glittering costumes. In The Others, she's a solemn mother clad in a long dress cinched tightly around her waist. For Birthday Girl, Kidman sports raccoon eye makeup and tight clothes. At Sundance, her trademark red hair is tucked under a beige winter cap. A long coat covers her hourglass figure.
Later that evening, the premiere of Birthday Girl is even more chaotic. Throngs of fans wait in the cold for Kidman's arrival.
Outside Park City's Eccles Theatre, Kidman poses for the paparazzi. She also turns and greets her fans. She signs autographs and hugs close for pictures. When one young man passes a Moulin Rouge book over the heads of the crowd, Kidman grabs it, autographs it, and passes it back to him.
"I've been to a lot of festivals this year," Kidman tells a Japanese TV crew. "I've been to Venice, Toronto, Cannes and now here."
Earlier in the year, at a Los Angeles press conference for Moulin Rouge, Kidman was visibly nervous. At Sundance, she is the consummate politician. Her goodwill oozes from every powdered pore.
"I think she's such an exciting actress, and I'm thrilled to work with someone who's at the top of their game," Butterworth says. "Actually, I expect that it's not the top of her game. I expect in the next couple of years she's going to make cinema history. She has six or seven brilliant films in her. I know how good she is and how focused she is."
I used to think that the cult of celebrity was best served by maintaining a mysterious distance from the public eye. Watching Kidman mingle with the crowd outside the Birthday Girl premiere, I realize that nothing builds goodwill like friendly interaction with fans.
Thanks to a pair of hit movies, the spotlight is no longer uncomfortable for Kidman. If she were a politician, she'd win her election in a landside. ©
