Welcome to Nicole's Magic, a fansite for the spectacular spectacular Academy Award winning Australian actress Nicole Kidman. Nicole is one of the most sought-after actresses of her generation, and is known for her roles in Moulin Rouge, The Hours and To Die For, and has recently been seen in the controversial thrillers Stoker and The Paperboy.
Nicole's Magic is the largest and most comprehensive fansite for Nicole, and is dedicated to supporting her and her career. As of March 2013, Nicole's Magic is entering a new phase of its fansite life, now focussing on paying tribute to Nicole's career up to and including 2006. Read more about what this entails here, and how you can keep up to date with her current career here. Nicole is our favourite actress, and we feel that this way we can provide a highly extensive and worthy tribute to this incredible woman. Comments, suggestions, sparkling diamonds, elephant love medleys and contributions are always more than welcomed so please contact me if you have anything to say. Enjoy your visit, add us to your Favourites and come back again soon!
NB: As part of our site overhaul, all of our content is moving over to a new system. While these changes take place many of the pages within this site will not work/give errors - please be patient as I work to fix them as quickly as I can!
Movie Of The Month
As part of a bi-monthly feature here at Nicole's Magic, each month we will be taking a look back at one of Nicole's films or acting projects. Nicole has an immense body of work behind her, and there's no better way to be reminded of her talent and how much we love her than immersing ourselves and taking an in depth look at those works.
"Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself..."
While this main site is now only focussing on Nicole's career up to 2006, you can still keep up-to-date with her current activities on our forum. Visit Nicole's Bulletin for the latest news and photos, and be sure to register to be able to post your own messages, and get access to even more Nicole chat and interaction.
In the editing room, there’s no substitute to having options (and plenty of them) for reaction shots.
“We love choice,” says Lee Smith, who edited Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.”
To get some choices for the edit, some directors opt for a take without dialogue — a k a “silent take” or “editor’s free take.”
In a silent take, the actors move through their blocking and can react with their bodies and faces, but not their voices. Sometimes a director talks them through the character’s interior monologue, creating an ad hoc dialogue to draw out threads of expression and emotion. In other cases, a director might “steal” shots, shooting actors on set before they know the camera is rolling.
In Smith’s experience, “silent takes” have been a product of both day-of decisions in which lines get dropped, and overall filming strategy, in which “they’ll put the line in, and then give me a version without it, which is always a smart way of filmmaking,” he says.
For Joe Klotz, “free takes” are unofficial tricks of the trade that allowed him to “build subtle gradations” of intensity in John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole.” While Mitchell didn’t explicitly shoot silent takes, he moved from scene to scene with fluidity, often leaving the cameras rolling between takes. The technique offered more choice to reach specific emotional valleys and peaks more naturally, such as in a fight scene, in which “Rabbit Hole” star Nicole Kidman hits herself.
“We built from that to make it work,” he says. “That’s what having that range does. You’ve got 10 takes, you can cherry pick and build things.”
At the Jan. 30 Screen Actors Guild Awards, the competition for best actress offers perhaps the broadest selection of performers and performances to be found on any nominations ballot this season.
“It’s a mix of great big movie stars and actresses who are a little less well known,” says Cameron Bailey, co-director of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.
The field includes two Oscar winners — Nicole Kidman, dealing with a family tragedy in “Rabbit Hole,” and Hilary Swank, fighting to free her unjustly jailed brother in “Conviction” — and a three-time Oscar nominee, Annette Bening, as a doctor in a lesbian relationship in “The Kids Are All Right.” Also up for consideration are Natalie Portman, playing an ambitious ballet dancer in “Black Swan,” and relative newcomer Jennifer Lawrence as a teen determined to track down her bail-jumping father in “Winter’s Bone.”
“These are not necessarily heroic roles,” Bailey says. “Some of the roles in the men’s categories are traditional heroes, but the women are playing complicated, very flawed characters. They all ended up doing great work.”
While it may sound cliche, Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald believes that even earning a nomination with this group is an accomplishment because 2010 produced such a bounty of award-worthy performances.
SHE took the nation by storm, and now Oprah Winfrey’s Australian specials will hopefully do the same in America.
The talk-show mogul has revealed the episodes filmed here will air in the US on January 19, 20 and 21.
The specials will feature a celebrity’s who’s who with Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, Curtis Stone and Hugh Jackman all making appearances.
Channel 10 is expected to air the specials soon after their US debut.
Keith Urban’s Wife Shares Thoughts at Nashville Screening of Rabbit Hole
Motherhood almost kept Nicole Kidman from finishing her latest film, Rabbit Hole. At Saturday’s (Jan. 8th) post-screening Q&A at Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre, the Oscar-winning actress said if she had been a parent herself at the time (webmaster note: Nicole actually WAS a parent at the time, albeit to older children – Bella & Connor), she may not have taken the role of a mother who loses her 4-year-old son in a car accident.
Kidman was not yet pregnant when she first became aware of David Lindsay-Abaire’s play after reading a New York Times article while sitting in a Starbucks just outside of Nashville. As Kidman explained, it took more than four years to produce and shoot the movie. During that time, she and husband Keith Urban welcomed their daughter, Sunday Rose.
Acknowledging her Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of Becca in Rabbit Hole was a “terrifying” experience, Kidman said she still gets very emotional when thinking about the story. She said the role “still sits in my psyche and probably will forever.”
What’s new today then, you ask?! I’ve replaced a number of the Oprah’s ‘Ultimate Australian Adventure’ Taping photos with HQ versions, as well as adding some new HQs, to start with. I’ve also added a new Rabbit Hole still, a new scan, and finally, added screencaps from the full ABC News video that I posted here yesterday. I will also be going through emails and adding your new responses to the Interact section.
And speaking of content, as soon as we have a few days without new Nicole stuff (there’s new stuff practically every day at the moment!) I will be starting to work on updating our content. I have some great ideas for new content that I hope you will love, so as soon as time permits I will get working on that.
Finally, make sure you check the Gallery regularly as I may add photos in there and not post about them here. Eg, I added a batch of entertainment news show segments screencaptures a few days ago (much love goes to my friend Brianne for some of these videos!).
Since my original post about the USA Weekend cover, full coverage has turned up online! Below is the interview, and a new and a beautiful photo featured in the magazine has been added to the Gallery. Thanks to Laura for the heads-up!
Oscar winner Nicole Kidman shares a peek at her quiet Tennessee life
Nicole Kidman is a study in contrasts. She is at once Hollywood royalty, comfortable chatting over tea at Manhattan’s swanky Peninsula hotel; an Oscar-winning actress known for her searing performances, including her latest in Rabbit Hole; and an all-American girl, happily settled into her life as wife and mommy on a farm in rural Tennessee.
Did we say American?
Indeed. The statuesque, strawberry-blond actress with the Australian accent was, in fact, born in Hawaii and lived in Washington, D.C., before she was whisked by her Australian parents to Sydney, where she was raised — but didn’t stay. Kidman, 43, has long split her time between Australia, New York and Hollywood. More recently, her husband, country singer and fellow Aussie Keith Urban, helped Kidman plant her Nashville roots.
As Mrs. Keith Urban, Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman is one of Nashville’s two favorite Aussie imports. Thanks to her scheduled participation on Saturday, January 8 at a screening and Q&A for her latest film, Rabbit Hole, taking place at our city’s oldest and coolest theatre, The Belcourt, Nicole just might edge past her country-singing hubby and take top honors with her current hometown.
Tickets to the event went on sale Wednesday to Belcourt Members and what few were left were snapped up Thursday when ticketing opened up to the general public.
Immediately following SOLD OUT Saturday’s 3pm screening, Nicole, who not only stars but also serves as producer for the film, will take part in a post-screening Q&A lead by Nashville’s own Demetria Kalodimos, longtime WSMV anchor and a filmmaker herself.
Nicole Kidman has revealed that her husband Keith Urban openly “wept” while viewing her latest film Rabbit Hole.
Parade quotes the Oscar-winning actress as saying that the grim drama tugged at Urban’s heart strings.
“When we saw Rabbit Hole together, Keith [Urban] wept,” she said.
Kidman continued: “He was totally in shock. He said, ‘It broke my heart’. Later, he just wanted to talk and talk about it. But I love being able to go to those dark places – I didn’t become an actress just to play the girl next door.”
Director John Cameron Mitchell’s film tells the story of a married couple (Kidman, Aaron Eckhart) whose lives are changed forever when their young son is killed in a car accident.
Rabbit Hole is now playing is US cinemas and is released on February 4 in the UK.
