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Although many assume
that Kidman is a native of Australia, she was
actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 20, 1967.
Her family, who lived on the island because of a
research project Kidman's father, a biochemist, was
involved with, subsequently moved to Washington,
D.C. for the next three years. After her father's
project reached completion, Kidman and her family --
which also included her mother, a nurse/educator,
and a younger sister -- moved to her parents' native
Australia. Raised in the upper-middle-class Sydney
suburb of Longueville, she grew up with a love of
the arts, particularly dance and theatre.
Trained in ballet
from the age of three, Kidman made her acting debut
in a nativity play when she was six. By the age of
ten, she was studying acting in drama school, and
she went on to train at the St. Martin's Youth
Theatre in Melbourne and at Sydney's Phillip Street
Theatre. An awkward, gawky teenager who was teased
relentlessly because of her height, Kidman took
refuge in the theatre, and she landed her first
professional role at the age of 14, when she starred
in Bush Christmas (1983), a TV movie about a group
of kids who band together with an Aborigine to find
their stolen horse. This was followed by a role in
another adventure film, BMX Bandits (1983), and a
number of TV movies.
Kidman's first
breakthrough came when she was asked to star in
Vietnam, a miniseries directed by John Duigan; the
actress won positive notices for her portrayal of an
awkward 1960s schoolgirl who matures into an
idealistic 24-year-old Vietnam war protester. She
also won an American agent, something that opened
quite a few doors of opportunity. In 1989, Kidman
got another major break when she was tapped to star
in Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm. A psychological
thriller about a couple (Kidman and Sam Neill) who
are terrorized by a young man they rescue from a
sinking ship (Billy Zane), the film helped to
establish the then-19-year-old Kidman as an actress
of considerable mettle.
That same year her
reputation was further boosted by her starring
performance in the made-for-TV Bangkok Hilton, which
cast her as a young woman incarcerated in a Thai
prison on false drug smuggling charges. By now a
rising star in Australia, Kidman began earning
recognition across the Pacific. In 1989, she was
picked by Tom Cruise for a starring role in her
first American feature, Tony Scott's Days of Thunder
(1990). The film, a testosterone-saturated drama
about a racecar driver (Cruise), cast Kidman as the
neurologist who falls in love with him.
A sizable hit, it
had the added advantage of introducing Kidman to
Cruise, whom she married in December of 1990.
Following a role as Dustin Hoffman's moll in Billy
Bathgate (1991), and a supporting turn as a snotty
boarding school senior in Flirting (also 1991), John
Duigan's wonderful and criminally little-seen
coming-of-age drama, Kidman collaborated with Cruise
on their second film together, Far and Away (1992).
Despite their onscreen pairing and some gorgeous
cinematography, the film got only a lukewarm
reception, and Kidman's subsequent projects, My Life
and Malice ( both 1993), were similarly
disappointing. Batman Forever (1995), in which she
played the hero's love interest, fared somewhat
better, but it did little in the way of establishing
Kidman as a serious actress. |
