NO LONGER ON CRUISE CONTROL

Nicole Kidman would probably rather forget all about 2001. In the last nine months the red-haired beauty has seen her apparently idyllic life come crashing down around her.

First there was the collapse of her marriage to Tom Cruise, then the news that she had miscarried their baby. She's also had to contend with an alleged stalker who bombarded her home with letters and, just days after her 'quickie' divorce, her superstar-ex proudly displayed his new love actress Penelope Cruz at a film premiere.

A lesser soul might have been crushed but the fragile-looking star has proved she's got more mettle than people give her credit for. Far from being broken she's upbeat, positive and still believes in love and marriage.

"I refuse to let what happened to me make me bitter," she says defiantly. "I still completely believe in love and I'm open to anything that will happen to me."

The Australian star couldn't have made that more apparent than when she was pictured yelling jubilantly on a Los Angeles street after signing divorce papers which ended her 10 year marriage. But while she is obviously embracing her new-found freedom she's remaining tight-lipped about just what went wrong in their relationship.

"I'm a woman, a mother, a daughter, a sister. I'm a real person operating in the world. For me to discuss the most private thing feels wrong. It feels like I'm betraying myself and my children," she reasons.

The couple adopted two children, Isabella eight, and Connor, six, during their marriage. Nicole, 34, says becoming a single mother is scary but she is determined to make it work. "I'm going to take care of them and myself," she says. "I'd give up anything for them."

But thankfully for her many fans she has no intention of abandoning the acting profession and insists that she's more committed to her work than ever.

"You get to work with some of the most brilliant people in the world and you help to facilitate extraordinary ideas," she enthuses. "I consider myself incredibly fortunate and I get to reach out to a lot of people."

Nicole was born in Hawaii because her Australian father, a biochemist, was studying there, but she was raised in Sydney. She grew into a five-foot-10 beanstalk while her red hair and pale skin meant she had to keep out of the sun in a country full of beach babes. Nicknamed 'Storky' because of her height, at her first school dance no one wanted to be her partner.


Convinced she was "the ugliest person on earth" she took solace in drama classes. At the age of 18 she landed a part in a hit TV mini-series called Vietnam which made her a teen idol. Then Tom Cruise saw her in the acclaimed thriller Dead Calm. He was looking for a leading lady for Days Of Thunder at the time and had Nicole flown over.

The pair fell in love during the filming of Days Of Thunder and later appeared in the epic Far And Away. By 1990 Tom had announced a separation from his first wife actress Mimi Rogers and less than a year later he and Nicole wed in a private candle-lit service in Colorado.

As an actress she proved she could make it on her own merit with critically-acclaimed performances in To Die For and Portrait Of A Lady, as well as her highly-lauded London stage debut in The Blue Room which one critic memorably described as "theatrical Viagra".

It was after seeing her sizzling performance on Broadway in the hit play that film director Baz Luhrmann decided to cast her for the lead in his movie Moulin Rouge.

The eagerly-awaited film, out here in September, was the toast of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and Nicole is drawing some comfort from the fact that, at least on the professional front, things are going well for her.

"I'm so proud of this film," she smiles. "Everybody worked really hard on it and the reaction we're getting from people who've seen it is they've never seen anything like it and they enjoyed it."

She celebrated the film's success at Cannes by hitting the dance floor with DJ Fatboy Slim and she's just as enthusiastic about another Brit, her co-star in Moulin Rouge, Ewan McGregor.

"It was great to work with him," she beams. "Straight away we had a tacit agreement that we'd support each other throughout, taking risks, and be willing to make complete fools of ourselves in front of each other. The great thing about working on Moulin Rouge is that people are saying, 'Let's try something different' and we've connected wholeheartedly to it - that's what made this project so fulfilling."

Set in the infamous Paris nightclub in the 1900s, Moulin Rouge tells the story of idealistic poet Christian, played by Ewan, and his doomed love affair with Nicole's character, the beautiful courtesan Satine.

It's an all-singing, all-dancing role for the actress, who has revealed yet another string to her bow with an impressive musical debut. "I watched almost all of the musicals I could get my hands on," she says of her preparation for the role. "I looked at Marilyn Monroe, Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth and they're all extraordinary. I have enormous respect for all those women now, and their talent, because I didn't use to pay that much attention before."

After Moulin Rouge, Nicole will be seen in The Others which was produced by Tom - the pair dodged one another at the US premier on the eve of their divorce - and there are further film projects in the pipeline as well as a possible return to the London stage at some point.

Since her marriage split, the actress has spent a week on a remote Fijian island with Gladiator star Russell Crowe but she denies any romance, saying they have been friends for years. She may not be dating but generally she is feeling upbeat.

"I'm not sure what the future holds but I do know that I'm going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate. As my dad said: 'Nic, it is what it is, it's not what it should have been, not what it could have been, it is what it is'."

Clearly, despite everything that's happened to her there's no crushing the resilient Ms Kidman.