I was watching your Dior commercial earlier today and I was struck by how incredibly tender everything you do is, even in the middle of the most outrageous musical number in ‘Hedwig’ or sex orgy in ‘Shortbus,’ it’s so tender, and I think ‘Rabbit Hole’ really reflects that.

Most of the questions I’ve been getting are, why would you do this? Was this hard? It’s such a departure. It doesn’t feel like a departure to me. It feels like another story of characters who are trapped in their emotional prisons who are desperately trying to get out, and Hedwig shares that with Nicole’s character. I mean, they’re freaks in their own world. Becca is in a more — well, it’s no more normal than Hedwig is [in]. You know, Hedwig is on a tour of Bennigan’s, basically, and Nicole is ensconced in suburbia and clearly didn’t go through the same experiences as Hedwig, but she is marked by the tragedy. Hedwig’s tragedy is a more physical one, perhaps more unusual, but Nicole is nonetheless marked. She’s alone; none of the usual sources of comfort work for her — religion, therapy, family — and the strange, unique event, the story that really attracted me is that the only person she can get comfort from is the kid who killed her son, which is just beautiful, unexpected, and tender.

- Read the full interview with John Cameron Mitchell at Moviefone.com

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play a couple trying to cope with the death of their young son in “Rabbit Hole,” a drama with flashes of humor written for the stage and screen by David Lindsay-Abaire.

Before he won the Pulitzer Prize, David Lindsay-Abaire’s adventures in Hollywood amounted to two middling family entertainments: the animated feature “Robots” and the Brendan Fraser bomb “Inkheart.” Lindsay-Abaire says that there’s not one word of his in one of those movies (he won’t say which one) and the other was so torn apart that he has never claimed ownership.

No wonder the writer concentrated primarily on the theater, where he found success putting a contemporary spin on the screwball farce. Plays like “Fuddy Meers” and “Kimberly Akimbo” continue to be produced on stages from coast to coast. He was also Tony-nominated for his work as a book writer and lyricist for “Shrek the Musical,” which is now at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre.

In 2006, Lindsay-Abaire stepped away from comedy to write “Rabbit Hole,” a drama about grief with surprising flashes of humor as a couple deals with the accidental death of their young son. Then the play, which starred Cynthia Nixon, John Slattery and Tyne Daly on Broadway, won the Pulitzer Prize, an award that occasionally makes Hollywood notice a piece of theater.

John Cameron Mitchell, a Broadway actor turned film director (“Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “Shortbus”), signed on to direct with Nicole Kidman co-producing and playing Becca, the grieving mother.

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IT IS the great A-List exodus – first Oprah, then a battered and bruised Hugh Jackman. Now Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have headed for the door.

Fresh from their appearance on Oprah’s Aussie taping at the Opera House, Kurban and baby Sunday Rose are due to fly out for their home in Nashville today, with Kidman set to begin the publicity rounds for her latest flick Rabbit Hole which has earned her a Golden Globe acting nomination.

And, in a sign they still like to keep their finger on the Aussie theatre pulse, the couple made time while in town to catch the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Uncle Vanya starring Kidman’s fellow Golden Globe nominee Jacki Weaver.

It’s understood Kidman dropped by backstage after the show to congratulate Weaver.

Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Annette Bening and other leading ladies beyond 40 are in prime form on the screen as studios pay attention to an older female audience and actresses flex their producer muscles.

In 1962, the year she was nominated for an Oscar for playing a grotesque has-been in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” 54-year-old Bette Davis placed an ad in Variety. “Thirty years experience as an actress in Motion Pictures,” the ad read. “Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. (Has had Broadway).”

Davis would be shocked to see what middle-aged actresses are doing in 2010.

Naomi Watts spies on terrorists, Diane Lane raises a champion racehorse, Julia Roberts decamps to an ashram. Nicole Kidman mourns a child, Helen Mirren orchestrates a shipwreck, Halle Berry splits personalities. Tilda Swinton falls in love over some prawns and Annette Bening and Julianne Moore raise teens, knock boots and tangle with a sperm donor.

Hollywood, an industry so often driven by the ids of 14-year-old boys, used to usher actresses into retirement after they lit their 39th birthday candle. But this year, leading ladies in their 40s, 50s and 60s have elbowed their way onto the screen in an abundance of principal roles in both studio and independent films.

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Nicole was nominated as Best Actress by the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, and Natalie Portman won the award.

Best Actress
Natalie Portman – Black Swan (*winner*)
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Noomi Rapace – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Thanks Mara from our forum!

The nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards have just been announced, and Nicole has again been nominated for Rabbit Hole. Unfortunately this is again the only nomination for Rabbit Hole from this group.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Hilary Swank – Conviction

The Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place on Sunday January 30th.

EDIT: Nicole’s reaction to her nomination:

“I’ve been acting since I was fourteen and have grown up with actors. So to be acknowledged by my colleagues for this means an enormous amount to me. I am so grateful and I want to share this with the incredibly talented and generous Aaron Eckhart.”
–Nicole Kidman, nominated for best actress for “Rabbit Hole.”

NICOLE Kidman used to give gifts to costar Aaron Eckhart while the pair filmed their new movie Rabbit Hole.

The Aussie actress — who’s married to country music star Keith Urban — says she pulled out all the stops ensuring her leading man felt appreciated.

“Every day I would turn up on set feeling so grateful that he was there because he is an incredible actor,” says Nicole. “I would bring him gifts to show my appreciation.

“I think he should stay single because he really is too nice a guy.”

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Going Down the Rabbit Hole
Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Sandra Oh, Miles Teller, David Lindsay-Abaire, and John Cameron Mitchell discuss making the film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

At first glance, John Cameron Mitchell — best known as the writer and star of the glam fantasia Hedwig and the Angry Inch and director of the pansexual sex comedy, Shortbus — might not seem a logical choice to helm the film version of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole, about Becca and Howie, a married straight couple (played by Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) struggling to deal with the untimely death of their 4-year-old son. But Mitchell had a very personal reason for taking on the project.

“I lost a brother when I was a teenager — my brother was the same age as the character in this film — and at the time there wasn’t a lot of grief counseling,” says Mitchell. “We had religion and it was about moving on and letting go before you were really ready to, so it was books and it was stories that helped me through that. But I realized when I read David’s adaptation of the play that it was some unfinished business for me to think about and maybe work through while working on this beautiful piece. It was really wonderful to work with these virtuoso actors, because as they did their scenes, I felt like I was in the scenes with them and feeling all the things they were feeling from behind the camera and it allowed me to release some stuff.”

Still, the film might never have happened at all if Kidman — who was in her native Australia — had not read a review of the play and sent one of her producing partners to New York to see the show. “I think I just immediately connected with the subject matter from the review,” she says. Then when I actually read the play, I thought the character and the story were so available. I could immediately just jump in. As we filmed, we didn’t approach it from an analytical point of view; we did it from a sort of visceral place.”

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Hear how Nicole Kidman juggled this tough role while producing the film. Plus, costar Aaron Eckhart slings some potty humor.

Speaking of Sandra Oh (see the post below), thank go to Carla for alerting me to another new Rabbit Hole clip – this one doesn’t feature Nicole as Becca, but is a scene with Aaron Eckhart as Howie and Sandra Oh as Gaby. I can’t embed the video here, so go and watch it at RottenTomatoes.com.