ON HER FILMS (more quotes about films can be read in the individual filmography pages)
"Everybody is obsessed with Bewitched. I get asked so many questions about it. I'm glad. It's fun. It's a lot of fun. Will Ferrell is just a sweetheart."

[On Dogville] "One day it would be a fairytale, the next it was a nightmare. Lars was gentle with me - he was gentle and soft, then he would beat me up emotionally when he felt he needed that. I did not always register what was happening until afterwards but you shouldn't have too much awareness as an actor, I don't think."

"When I heard about the Suzanne role in To Die For, I thought, 'I'll never get it - it'll be offered to someone else.' So I called Gus [Van Sant] at home, and he took my call, thank God. I told him I'd seen Drugstore Cowboy, and I really wanted to work with him. I said I was destined to work with him."

"There is a beautiful line in the script about how the dead gives us gifts. And for me, Virginia gave me a gift. That’s what’s quite strange about the whole experience: At that time in my life I needed her. I needed to play her." - On playing Virginia Woolf.

"It [the Portrait of a Lady] taught me to aprroach life seeking honesty and not to fear emotion. A lot of the time you walk around thinking 'I've got to be together, I've got to be sane.' Isabel says 'if i feel upset, I'm going to cry.'"

"Henry James and Jane Campion taught me something about myself that it's alright to be emotional and vulnerable and all those things that lead you to a deeper understanding of yourself."

"There's no drugs, no Tom in a dress, no psychiatrists." [on Eyes Wide Shut]

"I remember finishing the film being more exhausted than I'd ever been in my life. Creatively, I didn't want to make a movie again after I'd finished this one" [on Moulin Rouge]

"The Others feels like forbidden fruit for me in a way. I was in Batman Forever, but I've never had my movie be a hit movie. It gives me power now to do something else a little bit offbeat, and they'll finance it. I'm surprised at it's success. I just thought I was making this strange atmospheric little thriller with dark undertones" [on The Others]


ON HER CAREER
"I had a really good response over there (America). They're into Australian girls at the moment. They just find us very strange, apparantly. I suppose we're a bit rougher round the edges and a lot more laid back."

"With every character, you alter, you can’t be attached to your own identity."

"You get asked the same things over and over. Just once I'd love to be asked about my work. You know, my future projects, something like that."

"Acting for me is not a business, it's about trying to make pieces of art that I believe that I feel proud of. And it's the journey of that. There is no drive behind that. It's an acceptance of what my life is and that's being an actress and somebody who loves what they get to do. And they do it whether you pay me which sometimes happens. Or whether you don't pay me which also happens. I am dedicated to it."

"You want to take some responsibility in your choices so that it sets the groundwork for that next generation of actresses - so for me doing Lars von Trier, I would hope that says to another generation: 'go and seek out those directors, it's ok'."

"These different people that I play become the loves of my life."

"Why do a crappy film role when you can do a meaty stage role? and ...I'm not small and curvy and I don't fit the prerequiste for small, passive, sexy chicks."

"I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet, when your identity becomes mixed up in the way people are preceving you."


ON HER PARENTS
"My mother was a strong feminist and a tough lady, and my father always used the phrase when we were growing up: 'With love, but firm'. Believe me, I grew up with all the rules and guidelines and boundaries. My sister and I were only allowed to watch half an hour of television a day!"

"They came close to divorce many times, so yelling and screaming that it's all over-none of that scares me. My mother moved out once, I think, for a couple of weeks, so I don't have a fear of people not coming back."

"I adore her for her intelligence, her wit and what she gave up to help me and my sister. She worked through our childhood but she was always there for us and gave us a great education and belief in our own power" [on her mother Janelle]

"My parents were always extremely suportive. They allowed me any artistic outlet I wanted."

"Each weekend I'd go to the theatre at Phillip Street. I used to just lock myself in there for the whole weekend. I thought it was fantastic. I'd be teased a lot though, because I'd be going off to the theatre instead of going to the beach with the boys and all the girls. I felt like an outsider because of that."

"All the other mums would make these beautiful little sandwiches, but my daddy would just put a slab of butter on top of the bread and then say: 'Whatddaya want-peanut butter?' Wouldn't cut it and would't wrap it properly, so by the time you opened it at school it was all stale, and all the kids would tease us."

"He ran 8 miles at lunchtime, and I used to get terribly embarrassed when the kids at school saw him running, as he'd be all sweaty and look like hell."

"He has brought me up to believe in certain issues, definite values. He encouraged me to find time off by myself to meditate every day. He swears by that." [on her father Antony]

"He would take me to modern dance - I'd be sitting next to my dad and fully- grown men would be walking around, totally naked. My parents overeducated me- my sister and I were so embarrassed." [on her father Antony]


ON HER CHILDHOOD
"I learned to cross my eyes at school. In Australia you all sit on a mat while the teacher writes on the blackboard. We'd get so bored, we'd have eye- crossing competitions. I got quite good at it."

"I was doing ballet clases at four, and I have always loved masks."

"I was one of those terrible kids who said everyone's lines" [Nicole about her first role at the age of five]

"I wanted to be one of the lambs, because that was the comedy part. When Mary was rocking the baby Jesus, I went 'Baaaa, baaaa, baaaa', and of course everyone was in hysterics! This stupid kid trying to upstage Jesus as a sheep! I got laugh and that was it. I thought, 'Wow-this is fun!'"

"There has always been conversation over the dinner table and I have always been encouraged to question. That's great for an actor."

"At home I was always been taught to demand a lot of myself, and I think that stands you in good stead."

"When I was growing up in Australia , the beautiful look was straight blonde hair and olive skin. I was fair-skinned redhead. I used to pray for God to gave me tanned skin but if I tried to tan, I'd go red and peel. So I had to put zinc oxide on my nose, wear sun hats and cover up."

"My curly hair embarrased me. I'd spend ages trying to blow-dry it straight."

"It is character-building not to be a pretty chikd. You can't rely on batting your eyelashes and saying, 'Please can I have this?' You develop other strengths."

"Theatre was a place where I could go and just be somebody else. I was like, 'I hate who I am, I hate how I look, I hate how I feel with all these hormones racing through my body.'"

"I loved the show. I grew up watching the show; that's why I wanted to do it. [It was on in Australia at] 6 o'clock every weeknight for many, many years. I've seen almost every episode." [on Bewitched]

"Even though nobody in my family acted, I think we are all performers in one way or another. We all like to express ourselves."

"My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it. They said that I couldn't be an actress because I would be taller than all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead."

"By the time I was a teenager, I had developed skills as a writer, and my father encouraged me to think about a career in journalism. I began keeping a diary, which I maintain to this day. I used to fill whole notebooks with my writings."




ON HERSELF
"Catholicism will keep me going. I'm a Catholic girl. It will always stay with you."

"There is a little Buddhism, a little Scientology, I was raised Catholic and a big part of me is still a Catholic girl. There are still things that will stay with me for the rest of my life in relation to my Catholicism, the tradition and ritual."

"It's so bizarre, I'm not scared of snakes or spiders. But I'm scared of butterflies. There is something eerie about them. Something weird!"

"I would love to have boobs and a butt like Jennifer Lopez but I'm not having surgery so there it is"

"I have a little bit of a belly, a tiny bit of pooch. It's the one thing I don't want to lose. I just like having some softness. If I lose that, then Tom might leave me."

"I worry about the children; I worry about their future. I worry about my future. I’m quite a worrier. I can lie awake at night and worry. I can wake up at 3:00 AM and not be able to get back to sleep, that sort of thing."

"I had such admiration for people who can stand up and just get by on pure charisma, because I certainly don’t have that."

"I am someone who likes to put her cards on the table. I like to be able to talk to people about who I am, what I am, what I experience. I like to be very open and free about all parts of my life."

"To be an actor you have to have a certain amount of madness in you. That's why, when people meet you and you seem very together, they are quite surprised- they don't see you behind the closed doors"

"It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theatre, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist."

"They've said I'm gay, they've said everyone is gay. I personally don't believe in doing huge lawsuits about that stuff. Tom does. That's what he wants to do, that's what he's going to do. You do not tell Tom what to do. He is a force to be reckoned with. "I have a different approach. I don't file lawsuits because I really don't care. Honestly, people have said everything under the sun. I just want to do my work, raise my kids, and hopefully find somebody who I can share my life with again."


ON LIFE
"Even from a very early age, I knew I didn't want to miss out on anything life had to offer just because it might be considered dangerous."

"I think that you have to live life to the full, otherwise you have nothing to draw on."

"Whatever you do in life, don't give up on your own dreams."

"To live a really full life, you must stay open."

"If you enter the dark side of life, and come through it, you emerge with more strength and passion."

"I believe the experiences of life are more important than any film you make."

"The thing for this year is live for the moment, live for the day."

"Anything that involves suffering or pain, makes you a wiser person. You acquire compassion, understanding."

"Move forward one day at a time, keep smiling, and remeber that tomorrow is another day."

"Do you know I'm always scared that one day I'll look back and say 'God they were the best years of my life and now what?' There are moments when you feel as if you have been blessed for a while, moments when you think this is perfect, moments when you start to believe that even for an hour, even for a year-it might all happen... So I'm determined to keep making it get better and better."

"The power of work, and the power of creativity, can be your salvation."

"When you reliquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness."

"I think it's important that we don't all have to hold our heads high all the time saying everything's fine."

"Know that you're capable of so much more than you can ever imagine. I think if you want things (for the right reasons), then they will come to you. Anything is possible."


ON LOVE
"I do believe in lust at first sight. And then i think you're very lucky when that evolves into something a lot deeper. Lust and love somehow combined, I feel is the best thing for a relationship."

"I think you know it's love when you're making sacrifices. When you're willing to say this person is more to me than other things. When it becomes about wanting the other person to have everything that they want."

"Pain passes, but love remains, says so much about what I think life is about."

"No matter what goes in your life or what experiences you had in the past, you can always fall in love."

"It's a very brave thing to fall in love. You have to be willing to trust somebody else with your whole being, and that's very difficult, really difficult and very brave."

"I'm a person that carries everything that happened to me in my past with me into the future. I refuse to let it make me bitter. I still completely believe in love and I remain open to anything that will happen to me."


ON HER CHILDREN AND PARENTHOOD
"Whether I gave a birth to a child or not, is not even an element that exists now. If more are added to the family, more will be, but that is a very personal thing. It isn't anybody else's buisiness."

"You have those times when you say, 'I just want to curl up in a ball and never get out of bed', and then you have a six-year-old coming in and going, 'Where is the breakfast?'"

"It gives you a depth and selflessness that, particularly as an actor, you just don't have. It does open a lot of feelings that maybe you're not dealing with or maybe haven't realised were inside you". [on parenthood]

ON HER FRIENDS
"When you're in your teens it's all, boys, boys, boys, but ultimately you realise it's about taking care of your girlfriends. They're the ones who are constant. Boys come and go, but the girls, they stay. And thats why you should acknowledge friendships you cherish."

"Naomi actually dated my sister's first major boyfriend prior to my sister. Then we met at some casting call, but I knew of Naomi because she was always the pretty one. I would see her at the Oaks, a pub in Sydney, and look across and she was just gorgeous." [about Naomi Watts]

"We always say to Rebecca that she is the successful one because she has the successful marriage with three kids. Becca's the backbone, Naomi's the extrovert, and I'm the screwup. I'm the quieter one, the one that's sort of straighter, but I can be led astray. Naomi is the most gregarious She's the one that will dance on tables. I always say that all of this comes and goes and in the end you want to be old women and you want to look each other in the eyes and say 'I know you. We've stayed friends. I've seen so many things happen and I love you.' That's what I search for in friendships and that's the common thread through all of us. There's an honesty. We age together, we watch each other become wiser and stronger, and we see each other's frailities, prop each other up and support each other."


ON OTHER CELEBRITIES
"He is a total pleasure to work with. He put me at my ease and made me laugh. Now I'm seriously thinking of getting a tattoo like his." - on Robbie Williams

"It was fun. I think Robbie is very talented." - on Robbie Williams

"Robbie is a sweet soul and a great singer. His version of Mr Bojangles made me cry." - on Robbie Williams

"Robbie and I have become good friends and that's all. It's not what people might think, but Robbie is irresistible because he is so much fun to be around. He's a very funny man. He also gives me amazing confidence. I usually get frightened when I'm singing because I'm worried about my voice. I always feel like it's going to let me down, but he just threw away my fears with his enthusiasm and encouragement. I've been breaking through my fears a lot this year and Robbie has helped me do that."

"Dating Robbie? Who said that? I’m also dating about five other people. He’s actually very sweet and very shy and I’m very shy so you have two very shy people. Was he predatory and pushy? Not at all. He was a perfect gentleman. Maybe I don’t know enough about his reputation. But I take people at face value. He’s been charming and good to me - and that’s all."


ON TOM CRUISE AND HER FIRST MARRIAGE
"Now I can wear heels." - commenting on her break-up with Tom Cruise - August 2001

"I wouldn't want to be married to me, but luckily he does."

"I'm starting to understand now. At the time, I didn't." [when asked (in 2002) about her divorce]

"He is kind of wild, and I love that."

"Tom's not gay, to my knowledge. I can assure you my husband is no monk. He's the best lover I've ever had and he's a very sexual guy."

"When I first moved to America, I was madly in love, following my heart and willing to throw caution into the wind, which is how I live my life."

"I was willing to give up everything ... The marriage existed because it was two people in love. It's that simple ... He basically swept me off my feet. I fell madly, passionately in love."

"Every day there is a compromise. Living with somebody requires a lot of understanding. But I love being married. I really love it. Sometimes I try to downplay it a bit because people are like, 'God you guys.' I just feel so fortunate that I have found someone who will put up with me and stay with me." - on her marriage to Tom Cruise - August 2000


ON EVERYTHING ELSE
"I've never been so excited to have people walk all over me for the rest of my life" - When receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, January 2003

"There seems to be so much relevance attached to success and money. It's about creatively being satiated and being able to go, I've made some movies that I'm really proud of. I've existed in the world in a way that I've wanted to exist. I've been a parent as good as I can be, because it's riddled with guilt. And I've loved, and I've been emotionally involved in the world. The success is ultimately your connections with people - who you have in your life that loves you and you love."

"I loved Madonna. At the time I was a teenager going to clubs and listening to her music. She was our heroine. It’s so great that Britney Spears is now paying homage to her."

"When the idea finally hits, it goes down your arm into your hand through your fingers into the pen and on to the page rapidly" [from The Hours DVD commentary]

"When I see a guy going out with a taller girl I immediately like him . It shows he's confident."

"Free fall parachute jumping-there is nothing like it when you are up there at 14,000 feet with the cold air hitting your face. It is an amazing sansation-not as good as sex, but almost! You actually fall for about forty- five seconds."

"In the weirdest way, it has opened me up. I have carried the thought with me that whatever happens in the future, it won't get much worse than this. I have had my life turned over. I am dinner-party gossip. I get looked at and talked about. I get embarrassed, but I throw it aside and try not to be. My whole life has been spent trying to push through and beat such things." [on her divorce]

OTHERS SAID ABOUT NICOLE

"Nicole is nurturing by instinct, loyal beyond question, wise beyond her years. Her friendship is a constant gift of joy. Since I’ve known her I've always put her on a pedestal, not because she is untouchable, simply because she deserves my respect, for the bravery she applies to her work and the thoroughness with which she attends to life." - Russell Crowe

"You used to be my secret, my dirty little secret. There was a time when I was the only one who knew how great you were, but you've been giving so many wonderfull performances, now the whole world knows. The secret is out. Here's another secret folks. This is just the beginning... There is even more greatness to come. You are the princess and I am but a member of your audience." - Russell Crowe

"Being around Nicole is like being around electricity." - Baz Luhrmann

"It's like Sleeping Beauty. You feel that she's awoken, not from something terrible, but you feel she's in full bloom. You look at Nicole and see this woman in full possession of her power as an actress, her sexuality, and her sense of self. And it came out of the chrysalis of that experience." - Baz Luhrmann

"I like that mischievous, pixieish thing that she has. You know how some people, when you're around them, they make you feel more alive? That is her great gift. There's an old Australian expression - 'You wouldn't be dead for quids." It means no money on earth could substitute for the joy of life. She loves being alive." - Sam Neill

"She's an unusually intelligent and strong woman. We inspired each other creatively. I count her as one of my true friends."- Renee Zellweger

(Good Housekeeping Magazine May/June 2003) [Interviewer]"You've got two movies coming out before the end of the year. You've just made Cold Mountain with Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. Having worked with Nicole, how did you feel when she won the Oscar for Best Actress this year?"
[Renee] "I really felt like all the women there that night were girlfriends of mine, and I really love Nicole. We had a good time working in freezing cold Romania together. She's just so kind, and when she laughs, it's the most wonderful thing in the world, because she becomes like a little girl. [Joking] It's just a shame she's so unattractive, you know?" - Renee Zellweger

"When I was told I was meeting Nicole Kidman ... I was like, ‘How am I going to get through this and not look like an idiot or try to lick her face? But we got on really well and chatted and I just had a real blast with her." - Robbie Williams

"Nicole has a beautiful voice. I heard her sing in Moulin Rouge and I asked if she would be interested, fully expecting to be knocked back - she's a proper Hollywood star. But she said yes. I was amazed and thrilled." - Robbie Williams

"She remains the same unspoiled and most professional person she always was-never forgetting firends and colleagues." - Director Denny Lawrence on how fame has never changed Nicole's life.

"She's wildly alive and great fun and hugely loving and wants to go tothe party and dance all night" - Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

"Underneath Nicole Kidman is just a fun-loving Aussie girl who just happens to be famous." - Iain Glen, co-star of The Blue Room

"She is so elegant and at the same time is very human with a delicious sense of humour. Oh, a great sense of humour. You can tell she loves to laugh and laughs well." - AC Lyles, AMPAS member

"Every day I am with her, I still have this magnetic attraction to her-I can't keep my hands off her." - Tom Cruise about Nicole in 1996

"Nicole and I are forever. Our ties are strong, deep...it was love at first sight. Since we married 10 years ago we've stayed totally in love with each other. When I am with her I know that fairytales exist." - Tom Cruise, March 2001

"I'm the guy, the lucky guy." - Tom on being married to Nicole, December 1998

"Nicole was a very striking girl, but then there were a number of talented young girls at the school at that time" - Janet Grace, school librarian

"She's just one of these great women and she's always been thought of as very classical and period, and a highly serious trained actress. She is all that, but she's also hilariously funny so I loved playing with that surprise" - Griffin Dunne (Practical Magic director)

"I know when I was writing Dead Calm I kept saying "Nicole for the lead role". I think they were all thinking "Oh, he's fallen in love with her." Well it's not true, but I did feel very protective towards her". - Terry Hayes, who co-wrote Vietnam, and Dead Calm

"She never stopped working and getting inside her character's head. You look at some of these people and wonder why they have done so well. With Nicole, it was clear. She has all the talent, but never lets it get in the way of hard work. She's also down-to-earth and could tell jokes very easily. The film crew fell in love with her." - Viggo Mortensen, Nicole's Portrait of A Lady co-star

"She's one of those actresses whom you're slightly in awe of. You imagine her as the movie star from the front covers of magazines, that she's untouchable and that somehow gets in the way of her being human and funny. But she really is good fun. You meet her and discover she's just funny and girly. She's really giggly and you can make her laugh - a lot! I'd be very rude in front of her, swear and belch, and she'd say "Ew-an! - like a big sister with her younger brother." - Ewan McGregor

"I put her on a level with Hattie Jacques." - Eric Sykes, Nicole's The Others co-star

“Nicole was very much on my side. So they couldn’t really carve a wedge between myself and her. She was the shield; even though she didn’t have to say anything, she was there." - Jonathan Glazer, (Birth director)

"I didn't send her the script. She read it through another route and called me up about it. I was resistant to the idea. I didn't want all the stuff that comes with her. Her celebrity is so everywhere that I thought it could only hurt the delicate nature of this character. But, when I met her, that all went away. She was ready to inhabit the role. I could see it, I could smell it off her." - Jonathan Glazer, about Birth

“There was no politics with Nicole. She’s a really good actress and she commits herself to whatever she’s doing, so the relationship with her was easy. I never felt that star power going on. It’s only when you look around at the people standing off-camera that you realise it’s a different scale. I was initially reluctant to work with her because of the expectations that brings. But at the same time she was the best actress for that role.." - Jonathan Glazer, (Birth director)

"Everything about Nicole is a plus in this. Her slight aloofness, sometimes. The sense of privacy or aloneness, a little bit of aristocracy that she has and a certain exoticness, foreignness, for Americans anyway. She also provides a believability that she would hold two passports and would be quite international. They all seemed quite right for Nicole." - Sydney Pollack on casting Nicole for The Interpreter

"She is that rare thing: a wonderfull actress, a wonderful soul possessed of that skinlessness that the camera is that greedy for, which allows us to glimps all of her frailties, her sarrows, her joys, her good heart. She manages all of those things with grace, style and an astonishing work ethic ... I marvel at her ... no writer or director could be more blessed then a journey with her." - Anthony Minhella

"She is an amazing actress... When the camera starts rolling she is extraordinary. Early on I realised she had an authority and a sense of command astonishing in someone so young." - Robert Benton (when directing her in Billy Bathgate)

"Nicole is an actress whose remarkable beauty and talent and determitation has brought her the kind of success that only comes in dreams." - Adrien Brody

"She has an insatiable appetite to explore new worlds and characters. Her range is quite extroardinary. Nicole is a powerful person in our industry." - Lauren Bacall

"I will always admire you, Nic. You have always blown me away with your commitment to your art. You are an extroardinary actor. With every preformence you get braver and braver, and you continue to suprise all of us.... You have directors duelling over you and producers crawling over broken glass begging you to say yes." - Naomi Watts (American Cinematheque Award 2003)

"Nothing is as perfect as it seems, and you can look at one 'perfect' life and want for that, but it's just now how it is" - Naomi Watts on Nicole's relationship with Tom Cruise

"People tend to see our friendship because of the work element, and we were friends way before Hollywood came into the picture." - Naomi Watts

"Whenever we get together for any length of time, we always end up having a big fight, but it's always Nicole and me. Naomi's not a fighter. She's a pacifist. It was always up to Naomi to bring us back together. She's such a peacemaker at any cost. Nicole nailed it when we had yet another big argument and she said 'We are like the three sisters in Chekov.' It's always going to be difficult and fraught with tension and, you know, by turns absolutely rewarding and hilarious." - Rebecca Rigg

"I think Nicole is one of the most incandescent presences on the screen. Ever. I really think she's an alien. She looks like it. She can do anything. The woman is just ... there's something about her that's otherworldly." - Shirley McLaine

“I’m a real fan, she’s in the Meryl Streep category, she’s that good. She’s a very interesting person to observe if you’re a student of human nature, which I am and she is. Almost not of this world.” - Shirley McLaine

"The talented one that I’ve worked with recently, that I find extraordinarily unworldly, is Nicole (Kidman). Now what happens to her when she, at 5’11”, decides to eat a lot, which she does, I don’t know. But her talent is there." - Shirley McLaine

"She is luminescent and one of the best actresses I've ever worked with. She says she's waiting for someone to sweep her off her feet. I mean, wow, when you have all that beauty, why would you want anyone to give you directions for where to float?!" - Shirley McLaine