Nicole Kidman: A Kind of Life (13 page)

The solution, she determined, was to focus more on independent films, where women historically have been able to explore stimulating new territory as character actresses.

~ ~ ~

If 1993 was a bad year for Nicole, other than the adoption of Isabella, it was a terrific year for Tom, who signed on to do an unusual—for him, at least—role in
Interview with the Vampire
, based on Anne Rice’s best-selling novel. He also wrapped up production on
The Firm
, based on John Grisham’s best-selling novel. For a while that year, Tom was the cinematic darling—or antichrist, depending on how you looked at it—of America’s popular literary establishment.

The Firm
was based on Grisham’s novel about a Memphis law firm and its flirtations with organized crime. It was something the Arkansas-born author knew a little something about, having practiced law in a small Mississippi community just south of Memphis. Although travel magazines promote the city as a center for music, barbecue, and everything Elvis, Memphis has been an organized crime center since the 1920s. Grisham’s yarn is fiction, but it is also true in the sense that it is based on activities that have taken place in Memphis for decades and law firms that really do exist.

Director Sidney Pollack and executive producer Michael Hausman knew nothing about that, of course, so they decided to be true to the book and shoot most of the movie in Memphis, with smaller segments earmarked for Boston and the Cayman Islands. When it came to the script, however, they decided to jazz the story up somewhat. They changed the ending, a decision that gave the movie a different perspective, and they made numerous minor changes in the story Grisham had written.

One major change they considered was adding a female lawyer to the Memphis law firm joined by Tom’s character, Mitch McDeere, someone who could develop a romance with McDeere and come between him and his wife. Meryl Streep’s name came up first, but then it was decided that they needed someone closer to Tom’s age.

Rumors circulated that Nicole was promoted for the part. If true, it must have sent the Aussie redhead ballistic. All she needed at that point in her career—to end it—was to make another movie with Tom and play the girlfriend that comes between him and his wife! You could probably have heard Nicole’s screams halfway to Australia. For whatever reason, the idea of “another woman” was eventually dropped.

When Tom and his co-stars—Gene Hackman, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Hal Holbrook, Wilford Brimley, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, and Gary Busey—arrived in Memphis in the winter of 1992 to begin production, the film company was given the royal treatment by the city—and even by the mobsters they were scripted to unwittingly portray.

“I’m always on location, but I’ve never been in a city like Memphis where they made it so easy for you and where even your needs were anticipated,” Pollack told Donald La Badie, a writer for
The Commercial Appeal.
“I never in my life felt so welcome. People knocked themselves out for you. I’ll tell you one thing. It turns out that this Southern hospitality crap isn’t crap—or at least it isn’t in Memphis.”

Unfortunately, the hospitality was not a two-way transaction. Tim Baker, a cardiovascular consultant for a pharmaceutical company in Memphis, stopped by the set to say hello to his old classmate from St. Xavier Catholic boys school and to ask him to do a public service announcement for a dyslexia school in Little Rock.

As he stood in line in an attempt to establish contact with Tom, he was mistaken for an extra and told to move along with the others. As he was rounding a corner, he spotted Tom in a director’s chair talking to Pollack. He tried to talk to him, but he could not get close enough. Instead, he wrote out a note and asked a member of the crew to give it to Tom.

Baker did his work as an extra and went home to wait to hear from Tom. A week later, he received his response in the mail—an autographed photograph of Tom playing softball. The rejection did not seem to bother Baker. “[Dyslexia] is a tough thing to live with,” he told
The Commercial Appeal.
“Back then, they didn’t know what dyslexia was. Our school was advanced, offering several college courses. For him to do as well as he did (as a dyslexic) is remarkable.” Asked if Tom was popular at St. Xavier’s, he said no: “He was liked but not popular.”

 Filming proceeded without any major delays or problems—Tom’s absence to fly to Florida to help Nicole pick up baby Isabella provided the only behind-the-scenes drama—and wrapped up in late February 1993, after seventy-seven days of filming.

When
The Firm
was released in the summer of 1993, reviews were predictable. Jay Carr, writing in the
Boston Globe
, described Tom as “not an actor of great range,” but one who can become intense when the situation calls for it. “Owing its popularity more to its arrival during a cultural values shift than to literary merit, [
The Firm
] offers reassurance that there’s moral redemption from the greedy go-go ‘80s,” he continues. “With Cruise as the yuppie Faust—a hotshot lawyer who finds he’s made a deal with the devil by signing on with a rich Memphis law firm fronting for the mob—
The Firm
doesn’t reach and sustain the tension level of a really first-rate thriller. But neither does it bore you. Although far from fully satisfying, it’s slick enough to find ways to make you keep watching it.”

Joe Brown, writing in the
Washington Post
, saw merit in the film, almost apologetically. “
The Firm
looks like just another variation on Cruise’s patented young-hot-shot roles of the past decade," he wrote. "But Cruise has grown substantially as an actor, and
The Firm
means to expose the underbelly of the amorally acquisitive 1980s.”

~ ~ ~

The effect Tom had on Nicole after they were married was fairly obvious and played up by the entertainment press, which continued to depict her as Mrs. Tom Cruise, the Australian wannabe that became a Hollywood star by virtue of her association with Tom. It was not true, of course, but lies are just as hurtful as the truth sometimes.

What the entertainment press did not pick up on was the effect Nicole was having on Tom’s career. How could he live with a woman who was so passionate about her craft and not be influenced by her views? Nicole was disillusioned about the Hollywood concept of stardom. Basically, that concept is that people go to movies to see stars be themselves, and not to see great acting. To help her re-focus her career, she enrolled in New York’s Actors Studio, where she was taught the Method technique of acting. The experience uplifted her spirits and made her even more determined to be an actress as opposed to being a ”movie star.”

Because Nicole was convinced that character acting was the way to go, she influenced Tom’s decision to play the vampire Lestat in
Interview with the Vampire
. For the first time, Tom would play someone other than himself. He would play a villain, a vampire that killed the innocent to feed his own bloodlust. Tom was tired of playing himself. He wanted what Nicole wanted—the opportunity to portray a character that was totally different than what he was in real life.    

The news that Tom would play Lestat was greeted with vocal opposition by the book’s fans. Author Anne Rice jumped into the fray by telling a reporter that Tom Cruise “is no more my vampire than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler." When the movie was released she changed her mind and praised Tom’s performance.

Rolling Stone
published a review that was typical of most reviews of the film in that it begrudgingly gave Tom credit for his acting abilities. “The movie is hypnotic, scary, sexy, perversely funny and haunting in a way that taps into primal fears,” said the magazine. “It can also be gross, snail paced and grindingly glum. You could say the same things—pro and con—about Rice’s book.”

 No one was more pleased than Nicole, character actor advocate that she was. For the first time, she felt that their marriage had a creative direction. As time went by, more and more people wondered what she planned to do next. She gave a hint early in 1994 when she told
Movieline
that she would “Loooove to play a sex kitten.” And just so that the tabloid press would not misinterpret that comment, she volunteered to the magazine that she was not a lesbian and she considered Tom to be the best lover she had ever had.

           Nicole in
To Die For
                    Photofest

Chapter 6

AT LAST, A JUICY ROLE ‘TO DIE FOR’

Even after Nicole and Tom adopted Isabella, Nicole continued to tell journalists that they were still trying to have a child of their own and she denied that either of them had ever undergone fertility tests. She resented the endless questions about an issue that most couples would consider intimate and beyond the perimeters of entertainment news coverage. If her womb was not private, she wondered—what ever would be?

Of course, as far as the media were concerned, their fertility was less an issue than Tom’s sexual preference. Those issues were revived in the February issue of
McCall’s
magazine in a story that quoted a “prominent movie critic” as saying that the actor’s marriage was arranged by his management to halt the gay rumors, while promising Nicole an acting career in return.

Nicole and Tom were shocked by the story, especially since his ex-wife Mimi Rogers, who had begun the speculation with her comments in
Playboy
, recanted her previous statements in the January/February issue of
Detour
magazine, saying “No, he’s not gay. I run into people all the time who tell me that .  .  . I slept with the man for four years, I should know.” After being contacted by Tom’s lawyers,
McCall’s
agreed to run an apology in its April issue.

In February 1995, in the midst of the new gender speculation, Nicole and Tom adopted their second child, an African-American boy who was born on February 6 and placed into their home by mid-month. They named him Connor Antony Kidman Cruise.

Not long after that, Nicole went on the offensive over the gay issue with an interview that appeared in
Vanity Fair
magazine, a publication that the previous year had aired Tom’s denials of homosexuality. “I’ll bet all my money I’ve ever made, plus his, that he doesn’t have a mistress, that he doesn’t have a gay lover, that he doesn’t have a gay life,” she said. “We’re both heterosexual. We have a lot of homosexual friends and neither of us would shy away from having a homosexual (movie) role .  .  . but I take offense if people say I would marry into a marriage of convenience. I think that’s very sexist because they’re saying, ‘She married for fame and money.’”

But what the magazine offered with one hand, it took away with the other by describing Nicole as a “heat-seeking missile” who pursued her career with “relentlessness.” Nicole was livid. She became convinced that magazines were going to print only what they wanted to print, regardless of what she said.

Sometime later, in an interview with the friendly
Good Weekend
, the Sunday supplement of the
Sydney Morning Herald
, she said: “I do think, and I say this to Tom, that you are judged as a woman in this industry so much more than men. I mean, I live with one of the biggest stars in the world and I know how I’m judged in relation to how he’s judged. His determination is called intensity; my determination is called ambitious to the point of ruthless.”

~ ~ ~

Nicole’s next film role ran counter to what she had been telling reporters for the past year—namely, that she was going to focus on character roles and avoid the glitzy movies that used her for window dressing. To the surprise of everyone, she accepted the role of the licentious Dr. Chase Meridian, a criminal psychologist who spars with Batman in
Batman Forever
. After everything she had said, why would she want to play a comic book character in the glitziest movie of the year?

Nicole is very competitive, so the prospect of beating out all-American actress Sandra Bullock for the part may have played a role in her decision. However, a more likely reason can be found in the fact that the movie’s director, Joel Schumacher, was best known for character-driven movies such as
St. Elmo’s Fire
and
Flatliners
—and Nicole may have wanted to be cooperative, with the view of landing a role more to her liking somewhere down the road.

 
Batman Forever
had the look and feel of a box-office smash. In addition to Nicole, the film featured three leading men types—Val Kilmer as Batman, Tommy Lee Jones as Harvey Two-Face, and Jim Carrey as the Riddler—and a supporting cast that included Chris O’Donnell as Robin and the up-and-coming Drew Barrymore as Sugar.

Kilmer seemed like an unlikely choice to replace Michael Keaton in the title role. His most successful film to date was
Top Gun
, in which he co-starred with Tom. His performances as Doc Holliday in
Tombstone
, Elvis in
True Romance,
and Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s
The Doors
were well received by critics, but they were not the type of roles that projected a traditional leading-man image.

Batman Forever
begins with Two-Face holding a hostage as his hideout is surrounded by cops. After responding to the Bat sign, Batman arrives on the scene and meets Dr. Chase Meridian for the first time. She is elegant and direct, and since Nicole has dyed her hair, she is blonde and forbidding/accessible (depending on her mood).

In an effort to save the hostage, Batman falls into a trap and is caught in a metal cylinder that is lifted skyward by a helicopter. After several bad moments, he escapes, only to discover that his own temporary capture had allowed Two-Face to escape during all the confusion.

Back in his straight life as industrialist Bruce Wayne, he turns down Edward Nygma’s request for a go-ahead on daring new brain research. Frustrated by the rejection, Nygma transforms himself into The Riddler and devises a plan to get even.

Meanwhile, Dr. Meridian, having decided that she has a personal interest in Batman, summons him with the bat sign. When he realizes there is no emergency, Batman chastises her for misusing the bat signal. “You called me here for this? The bat signal is not a beeper.”

“Well, I wish I could say that my interest in you is purely professional,” responds Dr. Meridian.

“You trying to get under my cape, doctor?”

“A girl can’t live by psychoses alone.”

 His interest piqued, Batman asks, “The car right? Chicks love the car.”

 “What is there about the wrong kind of man?” Dr. Meridian asks herself aloud. “In grade school, it was guys with earrings. College .  .  . motorcycles, leather jackets. Now . .  . (she reaches out and feels his breastplate).  .  . black rubber!”

 With her blonde hair blown by an electric  fan off-camera, she comes on to Batman. He says he hasn’t had much luck with women, to which she responds that perhaps he just hasn’t met the right one.

The above exchange was pretty much the extent of what was expected of Nicole in the way of character development. Clearly, she was in the movie to provide eye candy to comic book fans and little else.

Batman Forever
lived up to expectations by grossing $184 million in the United States and another $149 million in overseas markets, but reviews were mixed, as might be expected. Peter Travers, writing in
Rolling Stone
, thought its overall tone was an improvement over the two previous Batman movies: “There’s no fun machine this summer that packs more surprises. Sure, there’s a lot missing:
Batman Forever
is more cheery than haunting. The violence, being cartoony and affectless, has no weight or consequence—something the moral finger pointers mysteriously think is a good thing.”

Writing in the
San Francisco Chronicle
, Mike LaSalle said he thought  Kilmer’s Bruce Wayne was younger and more handsome than previous Batmen: “You get the feeling most of his problems would be solved if only he got with the right girlfriend. In this case that’s Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), who is neither ugly enough nor beautiful enough to do Lauren Bacall, but she gives it a good try.”

Nicole generally got good marks for her performance. Indeed, some observers felt it was her stylish and recklessly seductive effort that rescued the film from falling into a mosh pit of adolescent boy-toys and heavy-metal-level sound effects: Swoosh! Bam! Purr! Compared to the other actors, Nicole seemed almost life-like!

~ ~ ~

At around this same time, Nicole’s acquaintance from acting school, director Jane Champion, told friends in Sydney she wanted to do a film adaptation of Henry James’s
Portrait of a Lady
and was considering Nicole for the lead role as the stubborn but tragicly vulnerable Isabel Archer.

When word of this reached Nicole, she called Champion and told her that
Portrait of a Lady
was one of her all-time favorite novels. To Nicole’s disappointment, Champion voiced second-thoughts about the project, saying she had heard that another film company had an adaptation of the novel in the works.

Nicole was persistent. She told Champion that it did not matter—“They can do theirs and we’ll do ours.” The director was so taken by Nicole’s passion for the project she decided to proceed. She told Nicole that she had the part.

Nicole was elated, the happiest she had been in a long time. She had always, from day one, considered herself a real actress, not the sort of eye-candy she had become in films such as
Batman Forever
,
My Life, Far and Away,
and, yes, even
Days of Thunder
. Her spirits soaring, she began studying for the part, reading everything she could get her hands on, turning over creative possibilities in her mind.

Then, while her emotions were at a peak, Champion called her and dropped a bombshell. She had decided that Nicole was not right for the part! Nicole was stunned, as was Tom, who found the way that Champion handled the matter very upsetting.

Like a rejected lover, Nicole called Champion repeatedly in an effort to restore confidence in her. The tone of the conversations was always, “Can’t we work this out?” Nicole assured her that she had both the passion and the ability to become Isabel Archer. It was a superb acting job, because by then Nicole had begun to question her own abilities.   

Champion told
Premiere
magazine that she felt “ashamed” about her role in the incident: “I think it just came out of—you know, in the time that Nicole was in Hollywood, she’d made quite a few films I didn’t think suited her, and I don’t think she felt suited her either.”

Finally, Champion agreed to fly to Los Angeles and allow Nicole to audition for the part she had given her and then taken away. It was an awkward situation for both women. They spent two days together, with Nicole performing scenes from the film and, at times, improvising—and Champion videotaping everything Nicole did. It was a humiliating thing for an actress of Nicole’s experience to do, but she went after the role as if it were her first.

On the evening of Champion’s last day in Los Angeles, the two women went out on the town to relax, ending up at a rock ‘n’ roll disco where they danced the night away. Before she left town, Champion told her she wanted a week, without telephone calls, to look over the videotape and make her decision. The fact that she did not tell her if she had the role before leaving was unsettling to Nicole, but she had gone too far with the director to be sidetracked by petty insecurities.

Finally, after she had time to digest the material, Champion called Nicole and told her that she had the part—
again!
Nicole burst into tears. Champion had put her through hell, had in fact broken her spirit and reassembled it to her own liking, but Nicole was so grateful that she forgave her instantly and promised to give the role everything she had.

Meanwhile, work on the project, which did not yet have a completed script or secured financing, was affected by a personal tragedy. Champion’s first child, a boy, died soon after birth. Devastated, Champion rebounded by getting pregnant again (this time, she would have a healthy baby girl that she named Alice).

~ ~ ~

When Nicole first read the script for
To Die For
, she was convinced she was perfect for the part. Based on Joyce Maynard’s novel about a woman who persuades her teenage lover to murder her husband, it is a true story that Maynard, probably best known for her eyebrow-raising relationship as a young woman with reclusive author J. D. Salinger, adapted to her fictional story with great effect.

The script was written by legendary screenwriter and actor Buck Henry (perhaps best known for writing
The Graduate
and
Catch-22
) and ventured into the dramatically treacherous territory of black comedy, a place few actors are comfortable traveling because of the great creative risks involved.