ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 7, 1997 TAG: 9701070044
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK KENNEDY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicole Kidman can't get no respect.
A half-dozen years after her Hollywood debut, the Australian actress is still proving she's not just another pretty face. Which is tough, when you have such a pretty face.
Academy Award-winning director Jane Campion almost got distracted by it.
Kidman had been handpicked to star in Campion's much-awaited follow-up feature, ``The Portrait of a Lady,'' a 19th-century saga awash with parasols, bustles and tear-stained tea parties that is schedule to open in Roanoke next week.
But Campion, plagued by second-thoughts, withdrew the offer.
``She had already cast me in it,'' Kidman says mournfully. ``And then she said, `No, I don't think you can do this.' And then she took the role away.''
Maybe it's the 28-year-old's lush mane of strawberry curls. Or those flawless, Botticelli-inspired features. Or maybe it's the prodigious shadow cast by her mega-celebrity husband, Tom Cruise.
Whatever it is, Kidman is still battling a credibility gap more than eight films into her American career.
So she protested. Campion's headstrong, complex heroine was like the holy grail to an actress too often relegated as the ingenue.
``For me, this was the role that I was so desperately wanting to play because of its depth,'' says Kidman. ``It is so unusual to get a character where there is so much richness to her, that you ask a million questions and all of which can be answered in many different ways. It was an opportunity to play a complicated, interesting, wonderful woman.''
Campion relented, of course. But only after a two-day, grueling auditioning session. Kidman says she harbors no hard feelings.
``I felt it deepened our relationship and allowed an enormous amount of trust,'' she says in a smile that would melt polar icecaps.
``As much as that was a really difficult experience to go through as an actor, it gave me the confidence to enter into the film and not have her up on a pedestal.''
It's a telling analogy. Perhaps Kidman is herself wrestling to get down from her own pedestal. That lightning-quick ascent into Hollywood royalty has obscured her award-winning talents as an actress.
Since her movie debut at 14, Kidman won critical acclaim in Australia. By the age of 17, she'd been voted Australia's best actress for her work in the much-acclaimed TV miniseries ``Vietnam.'' She won the award again in 1989, along with a clutch of theater awards.
Her portrayal of Sam Neill's terrorized wife in 1989's ``Dead Calm'' attracted much attention, both at home and abroad. But the transition to Hollywood has been rocky, consisting mostly of implausible, love-interest afterthoughts.
Kidman played a mushy neurosurgeon in her big-budget debut ``Days of Thunder,'' a silky gun moll in ``Billy Bathgate,'' a prissy Gaelic Barbie Doll in ``Far and Away'' and a kickboxing psychoanalyst who lusts after a psycho-superhero in last year's ``Batman Forever.''
``They were fun,'' Kidman says of those earlier roles. ``Some of them were really fun.''
But the 5-foot-10-inch beauty isn't interested in them any longer.
``It's just that I reached a point in my life where I had things I wanted to explore, things I wanted to say. And not really a chance to do them.''
By the time Kidman contacted Campion about her $27 million project, Campion's first effort since the much-acclaimed 1993 release, ``The Piano,'' the actress was in a serious funk.
``I was looking, hoping, that I could find something that would jolt me, that could give me the stimulation - the intellectual and visceral stimulation - that I was craving,'' she says. ``I hadn't had that opportunity since I'd come to the States.''
Last year, the actress gave a pitch-perfect, wicked portrayal of Suzanne Stone, a cable weather girl obsessed with TV stardom in Gus Van Sant's dark movie ``To Die For.''
``I was warned before I took the role that it was so unlikable that people weren't going to like me,'' she chuckles. ``But I don't care about likability. That's not why you choose roles.''
The performance got raves and won her a bundle of best actress awards, including a Golden Globe. But naysayers convinced themselves that a chilly Kidman really wasn't acting.
Even when she delivers, Kidman still can't get any respect.
``That suddenly became my personality,'' she says, her piercing blue eyes widening. ``It stunned me, actually. Some people perceived it as, `Well, she couldn't be acting. That has to be her.' I never expected that in a million years.''
Which is why Kidman is pinning her hopes on the success of ``Portrait.'' Her relation to the film is, well, almost maternal.
``This film means more to me than any other film I've made,'' she states clearly. ``And I know it does to Jane, too. Some films you make which you can walk away from. This is one we're very protective of. We're out there feeling that we have to shield the baby. Protect the baby!''
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Australian actress Nicole Kidman is pinning her hopesby CNBfor respect on the success of ``Portrait of a Lady.'' color.