Nicole Kidman is the cover girl for the February issue of Harper’s Bazaar. I guess Kidman is jointly promoting Rabbit Hole, and her smaller part in Just Go With It, the Adam Sandler comedy also starring Jennifer Aniston. Aniston conducts Kidman’s Q & A for the magazine. Oh, you know it’s going to be good. Just wait. The ass-kissy-ness of the interview is intense, and they are both falling all over each other. Also, Nicole is particularly awkward when Aniston asks about Nicole’s adopted children with Tom. The full Bazaar piece is here, and here are some of the extensive highlights:

Aniston remembers: “I remember the first time I met Nicole Kidman. We were at a Golden Globes party in 2005 and–typical Hollywood story–we share an agent. I remember meeting this tall, beautiful woman who was there with her mom and dad. I was completely starstruck, while she was nothing but gracious. Nicole had just seen one of my rom-coms, as they call them, and was instantly kind and complimentary. I loved her immediately. We’ve run into each other over the years, keeping in touch. But it was Adam Sandler, of all people, who brought us together in Hawaii to film the comedy Just Go With It. Now not only do I have a dear friend, I can’t see myself dancing the hula with any other gal.”

Jennifer Aniston: Good lord, I just saw Rabbit Hole. No wonder you went running wildly into the arms of Adam Sandler in Hawaii. I would run as fast as I could just to … I don’t know, laugh? I don’t know how you walked through a movie about the death of a child, quite honestly. How did you do it?
Nicole Kidman: I don’t know. As soon as we got the rights to make the film, I was terrified. But I have that relationship with everything I do. I want it, then I get it, and then I don’t want it. I’ve worked like that my whole life. So yeah, Maui was definitely a breather.

JA: You are like the Secretariat of actresses–when I see your body of work and everything you have achieved. But in the midst of all these unbelievable roles, I forgot how funny you can be.
NK: I know, you kept saying to me that I was funny, and I was like, Really? I never get asked to do comedy! I get asked more to do the Rabbit Hole stuff. But I remember doing SNL with Adam Sandler years ago, and he said to me, “I want to make you funny in a film one day.”

JA: What attracts you to a project? What’s the key element that has to be there?
NK: Usually something strange. It’s a little weird or offbeat or very uncomfortable. I have to be convinced to do things that are more mainstream. As a kid, I was always a bit, I suppose, darker. I was drawn to things that were unusual. And that’s partly to do with my parents. My mom’s always questioned things, wanted us not to conform. So, with roles, I like to be in a place of discomfort. I do my best work in the most complicated roles. I don’t have the capacity to be lighter, and I so wish I did. I’m working on it. And I don’t get offered stuff that I go, Wow, I can’t wait to do that. But so much of that is about your life partner, the person who has held you in their arms at night, who has helped you through things. You’ve given to them, and you’ve seen them get their dreams. … When I won it, I gave it to my mom. She gave me the confidence to go after things. She would listen to me when I thought it was all over. She’s been my rock. So to be able to give her that was my way of saying thank you to her.

JA: I feel awkward getting into interviewer mode, but tell me about your life in Nashville with Keith [Urban] and Sunday Rose. How long have you now lived there?
NK: Five years.
JA: I was just down South in Georgia, and it was heaven to be away from all the irritation of the cameras and all that hubbub. Was moving to Nashville something that both you and Keith wanted to do?
NK: It was perfect timing, because I had nowhere to live. I was living out of suitcases when I met Keith. I suppose in the back of my mind I was waiting to meet somebody. And I wanted it to be that if that person didn’t live in New York or Los Angeles, I would be able to move. In the back of my head, I was thinking I may have to put my roots down somewhere. I was going to move to Oregon.
JA: Oregon? It’s gorgeous. I understand that absolutely.
NK: Yeah. I love living a ways away. That’s what I’ve worked for in my career, to not have to live in Los Angeles. So it was fortuitous that Keith happened to live in Tennessee. He brought me down to this place called Leipers Fork, just outside of Nashville, very lush and rural. I just went aaah. You know how you dream as a girl; I’m one of those people. I would meet a guy, then I would imagine myself married and with kids within the first hour. [Laughs] But it worked out.

JA: When you two first met, Keith said he saw you walk into the room and you just floated. Yes, I watched him on Oprah! Did you feel it as instantly as Keith felt it?
NK: I remember thinking, Oh, my God, if you ever gave me a man like that, I promise I would be completely devoted for the rest of my life. Something that wild. I remembered praying after I met him that I’d meet somebody, if not him, like him.

JA: He’s a total sweetheart. I remember him bringing you Chinese food on set, being such a good husband while we were all being silly and playing with coconuts. I’m so inspired by how you navigate this exquisite career and how you’ve incorporated this wonderful, beautiful family. I bow to it; I aspire to it. But it’s a big bite to chew. How has having kids changed you from your 20s to now?
NK: I had kids at 25 and 27 [Isabella and Connor, Nicole's adopted children with first husband Tom Cruise]. I think I have more patience now but less physical energy. It’s a trade-off: In your 20s, you’re bounding around, they’re attached at your hip, and you can just go and do anything. But I’m much more of a homebody now. My roots are deeper. I probably have way more mental energy and a lot less physical energy, if that makes sense.

JA: What’s your biggest concern as they go through their teenage years?
NK: I think it’s finding their bliss. You’ve got to find your bliss as a human being, because if you can follow that, everything else falls into place. So that’s what I wish for them. That means careerwise and just the essence of who we are as people.

JA: Did you always want to act?
NK: I think I did. Did you?
JA: Yeah, I did. It was my family; I came from it too. It looked like so much fun.
NK: For me, it was never going to be work. It was almost like I needed to have a day job, because this was too much fun. But I was a highly sensitive child, and the last thing my parents wanted was for their child to go in and get hurt.

JA: What do you think is the hardest thing about being an actor?
NK: Fame. It’s a great thing in the sense of the opportunities it gives you, but you don’t realize that you’re dancing with the 100-pound gorilla.
JA: Yeah, it turns from Glinda the Good Witch into the nasty green one, then back to Glinda again.
NK: Most actors are highly sensitive people, but you have this incredible scrutiny. You have to develop a thick skin, but you can’t have a thick skin in your work. So it’s that constant push-pull of going, How do I stay human and vulnerable and real, and how do I, at the same time, not let all this affect me? I suppose it’s the same when you’re at school and you get a taste of girls who are being mean. It’s the same thing, just at a bigger level.
JA: Absolutely. People can be supportive and then turn around and be so mean.
NK: But at the same time, we’re in an extraordinary place, and to complain about it you go, Ugh, move on.
JA: You speak the truth, my friend.

JA: Okay, let me just say this: Physically, you are a masterpiece.
NK: Excuse me, you wear a bikini in the film and you look like you’re 20 years old.
JA: I think that’s Vaseline on the lens.
NK: You are a freak of nature. You have the best body I’ve ever seen. And I’m a heterosexual girl. You look good morning, noon, and night.
JA: Oh, please. I live in jeans and flip- flops. A good tank top, a great pair of jeans, and a great little wedge to give me a couple inches more that my dad didn’t give me. Otherwise, I get kind of stumped. I see people walking through New York City and go, Wow, that’s a great idea, why didn’t I think of that? But, Nicole, you always have that smart look. It’s very Annie Hall. I love it.
NK: I like boy-girl looks. I have no sense of what’s fashionable; I just know what I like to wear. I don’t believe in something being in and out. You know those lists? That probably goes along with the whole way I live my life. I don’t like kind of changing with the wind; I like sticking to my own self.
JA: You wear L’Wren Scott a lot, right?
NK: L’Wren’s collection, basically, I can wear. I don’t have time to look through things. I used to be far more into that when I was in my early 20s, but I just don’t have the interest anymore.
JA: If it looks good, the last thing you want to do is try on 10 couture somethings.
NK: Yeah, Renée Zellweger said she’s just not interested in having loads of designers make dresses for her; it feels gluttonous. That is so right. It’s not the place to be, particularly in your 40s.

JA: Another interviewer question: Has Nashville changed the way you dress?
NK: No, not really.
JA: C’mon, you can tell me. You have a cowboy hat hiding in that closet.
NK: I don’t wear cowboy hats. I think they’re cute. I sometimes put one on with a bikini, but it’s a particular look. I like a cowboy hat on Sunday Rose.
JA: Does Keith buy you clothes?
NK: Yeah, and he buys me lingerie.
JA: Nice! Did you have to train him for your taste?
NK: Ha! I don’t train him for anything. That’s what I love; he’s just got his own way of being.

NK: I like to ask people if they would rather have a great love that lasts a lifetime or an amazing career where you go down in history. Some people do answer that they want an extraordinary career.
JA: I know what I would choose. That’s a no-brainer. I would choose the love of my life.
NK: And what would you tell the 20-year-old you?
JA: I would tell myself to have more fun; enjoy this. There was a lot of unnecessary angst. You may as well enjoy things. You’re going to turn 30. Are you going to dread it? No, it’s happening. This is awesome! Don’t worry about something going away; enjoy it while it’s happening. And don’t worry about something that’s not even real.

JA:You said when you won the Oscar for The Hours in 2003, it was such a lonely time for you.
NK: Yeah. It’s strange how life gives you the best and the worst. I was probably at my least happy when I won it. And I was single. It was a strange time….

JA: Do Isabella and Connor come down to Nashville a lot?
NK: No, they don’t. They’re not crazy about Nashville. They’re so grown up now. I mean, they’re adults.

JA: You are in such an amazing place now. What do you think you would tell your 20-year-old self?
NK: That you’re going to meet the love of your life. My whole thing, my whole thrust in life, was hoping I would.

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

I mean… there are too many gems in here to even single them out. I LOVE that Aniston says that she wants what Keith and Nicole have, considering that at its heart, what Keith and Nicole have is a business arrangement. I love the mutual ass-kissing about their bodies. I also like that Aniston doesn’t get the signal to stop asking about Isabella and Connor, and BRINGS THEM UP AGAIN. I love that Nicole says Keith buys her lingerie. That image is incredible. Sigh… I’m going to pour through this again and again.

Photos courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar.

Nicole Kidman is still doing press in support of her critically acclaimed turn in Rabbit Hole, the film that will likely score Kidman yet another Oscar nomination, maybe. During some of the press for Rabbit Hole, Nicole has made constant reference to her daughter Sunday Rose, and, as often happens with Nicole, she often sounds like being a mother to Sunday is her first go-around as a parent. It’s not that Nicole “forgets” that she has two children with Tom Cruise (Connor and Isabella), it’s that she often makes reference to how “amazing” it is to a parent this time around, and all the things she’s learned as a parent now, stuff like that. It’s not forgetting… it’s like her adopted children are an afterthought, a side note, and simply not as important as Sunday Rose. Anyway, Nicole was recently interviewed in Hello Magazine, and they asked her about Isabella and Connor. Her response was… interesting:

Nicole Kidman has admitted that she is sad that her two adopted children chose to live with ex-husband Tom Cruise. Isabella, 18, and Connor, 15, live in America with Cruise, his wife Katie Holmes and their four-year-old daughter Suri, but Nicole said that she has to respect and accept their decision.

She told Hello! Magazine, ‘They live with Tom, which was their choice. I’d love them to live with us, but what can you do?’

The actress welcomed daughter Sunday Rose with new husband Keith Urban in July 2008, and said she was named after their favourite day of the week.

‘When we were both alone, before we met each other, Sunday was the day we dreaded most, because when you don’t have someone in your life Sundays can be really lonely,’ she explained.

‘Then when we met, we went from dreading Sunday to really loving it. It was the day when nobody was going to bother you, you could stay in bed, you could do what you wanted to do. We just thought, ‘What a great name for our baby!’ It’s a beautiful thing at 43 to have a two-and-a-half year old.’

[From Monsters and Critics]

It’s just… strange. I have no doubt that Tom Cruise pulled some kind of Scientology blackmail/black magic to get custody of Connor and Isabella, and maybe Nicole didn’t really fight him on that. But I don’t really know – I mean, who does? Who knows what goes on with Tom anyway?

In addition to those comments, Nicole also told the Associated Press: “It took me so long to get pregnant and have a baby, so I have enormous gratitude. I have two grown children with that enormous gratitude that they are healthy and sane and together and are great, great people. So I’m not one of those people that needs to be reminded of what I have.” Does anyone else get the feeling that Nicole hasn’t even seen Isabella and Connor in YEARS? What’s up with that?

Nicole Kidman is one of those people I just enjoy. Do I make fun of her BotoxFace? Of course. Do I hold my breath to see what she’s wearing? Yep. Do I read every single interview she does? Absolutely. Nicole is full of crap most of the time, but she’s one of the most unintentionally funny celebrities out there. I want the best for her, I really do. And nothing pleases me more as when she is trying to convince me that her life is so charmed and special. For some reason, Nicole bring out my rage like, say, Gwyneth Paltrow, although there are “frozen, icy bitch” comparisons to be made. Mostly I just want Nicole to stop messing with her face and mostly I want to punch Goopy in her smug face. Weird. Anyway, Nic has a new interview with the Associated Press/HuffPo to promote Rabbit Hole – she was nominated for a Golden Globe for it, so things are looking up for Ol’ BotoxFace.

Nicole Kidman is giving audiences grief with her latest drama, “Rabbit Hole,” playing a disconsolate woman coping with the death of her child. Yet 10 years after one of Hollywood’s most-publicized splits, the breakup of her marriage to Tom Cruise, Kidman is in the happiest of places, with little to sob about.

After a shaky few years when she made such duds as “The Stepford Wives,” “Bewitched,” “The Golden Compass” and “The Invasion,” Kidman is back in Academy Awards contention for the first time since back-to-back nominations for 2001′s “Moulin Rouge!” and 2002′s “The Hours,” which earned her a best-actress Oscar. Kidman also is a producer on “Rabbit Hole,” opening Friday as the first release from her production company, Blossom Films.

She’s four years into her marriage with country music star Keith Urban. Kidman, who had a miscarriage while married to Cruise, now has a 2-year-old daughter with Urban. The family has settled so comfortably at their Nashville home that Kidman is not terribly inclined to rush out looking for work.

“I’m in a place where I just don’t want to take on too much,” Kidman, 43, said in an interview. “It’s not about, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get all these things for myself,’ because I love being at home. But you know, my husband and my mother will say, `You shouldn’t just abandon your talent. You should still get out there and do some things every now and then, because you’ll appreciate that over the next couple of decades.’ And I suppose deep down, I know they’re right, because part of me could easily just keep nesting and staying at home. It’s really nice.”

Kidman never seems to stay in nesting mode for long. She is preparing to shoot the HBO movie “Hemingway & Gellhorn,” playing war correspondent Martha Gellhorn opposite Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway. Then she is signed for director Lasse Hallstrom’s “The Danish Girl,” based on a novel inspired by painter Einar Wegener, the first man to have a sex-change operation. Kidman also has a supporting role in Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston’s comedy “Just Go With It,” coming next year.

All this comes on top of her own filmmaking chores, some only as producer, some to develop good roles for herself, always an issue for actors as they get older and choice parts dry up. Rather than playing it safe, Kidman seeks out edgy filmmakers – Lars von Trier, who directed her in an arthouse variation of torture-porn in “Dogville,” or Noah Baumbach, for whom she delivered a mercilessly raw performance in the sibling drama “Margot at the Wedding.” Likewise, for “Rabbit Hole,” Kidman brought in John Cameron Mitchell to direct, an unlikely choice for a somber drama given the outrageous sexual and social exploits in his previous films, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus.”

Kidman clearly knows how to do smaller, more personal stories such as “Rabbit Hole.” The film earned her a Golden Globe nomination, and she seems a safe bet for her third best-actress slot at the Oscars. Based on David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Rabbit Hole” stars Kidman and Eckhart as a couple straining to save their marriage and make sense of the death of their young son in a traffic accident. A tough story to watch. Even tougher to perform in.

“It was kind of like, why am I doing this? Am I masochistic? But at the same time, I felt compelled to tell the story,” Kidman said. “There’s no right or wrong way of navigating grief, and this is just a study, almost like a case study, of it, of two people and their marriage and their family, and how they somehow move through it. But they move through it moving toward each other rather than away. They say 80 percent of couples that go through this don’t make it, but I didn’t want to make that movie.”

The movies Kidman does want to make are varied. She and producing partner Per Saari are looking for stories that need a helping hand amid uncertain times in the film world, when studios are interested mainly in the next blockbuster and filmmakers with challenging scripts are scrounging.

“It’s not like some huge offices or anything. We have a laptop, and we make phone calls, but there’s just the two of us, and we just have a couple of things that we’re really invested in,” Kidman said. Among potential projects are a remake of Marilyn Monroe’s “How to Marry a Millionaire,” in which Kidman would not star, and a film biography of singer Dusty Springfield, in which she’s not sure if she would act. They have the rights for Chris Cleave’s novel “Little Bee,” a tale in which Kidman does hope to star about the relationship between an Englishwoman and a teenage Nigerian refugee who has undergone terrible trauma.

Kidman, who has two adopted teenagers with Cruise in addition to her and Urban’s daughter, said she was able to hurl herself into the role of bereaved mother with little preparation.

“It took me so long to get pregnant and have a baby, so I have enormous gratitude. I have two grown children with that enormous gratitude that they are healthy and sane and together and are great, great people. So my sense of knowing what I have, I’m not one of those people that needs to be reminded of what I have,” Kidman said. “But I suppose my compassion, my ability to just – I can weep when I hear the stories that people tell me of what they’re going through. So my heart is open to that because of this film, because I’ve kind of put my toe in the water, in a way.”

[From The Huffington Post]

See? You never really want to punch her. Even when she’s talking about her two older children like they’re afterthoughts (sketchy) or when she’s giving us a line about how she doesn’t feel the need to work. Here’s a tip, Nicole: people who don’t feel the need to work simply don’t. They disappear for a few years, and do whatever. Nicole works all the time. But don’t you love this: “But you know, my husband and my mother will say, `You shouldn’t just abandon your talent.’” If Goopy had said that, she would have changed it to “My dear friend Deepak Chopra and my other best friend Barack Obama both called me yesterday and asked ‘Why don’t you work more? You are a glorious, amazing talent.’ And I told them ‘I can‘t grace you with my presence all the time, because I prioritize my children so much, you know.’”

These are photos from Friday’s photo call/press conference for Rabbit Hole, that grief porn film starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart. Hilariously enough, photographers basically just took closeups of Nicole’s face throughout the entire thing, so there are only photos of The BotoxFace in various degrees of “emoting”. I think Nicole knew that photographers were only zooming in on The Immovable Forehead, because she looks seriously pissed in many of these photos. I love it – Nicole has one of the best bitchy skunk-faces in the business, probably because she doesn’t use it all too often.

In other Kidman news, while doing press for the film, she ended up talking about little Sunday Rose and how she’s the next Nashville star:

Nicole Kidman’s Grammy-winning hubby Keith Urban isn’t the only crooner in the household. At the NYC premiere of her new drama Rabbit Hole Thursday, the actress — who showed off her own vocal talents in Moulin Rouge — told UsMagazine.com their two-year-old daughter Sunday “sings incessantly!”

Continues Kidman, “She has a repertoire of about 30 songs: ‘The ABCs’, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Traffic Light’ — have you heard that one? And ‘So long, Farewell,’ she was singing that as I left the house.”

According to Kidman, her tot’s talents aren’t limited to just her voice. When her dad gave a quick at-home performance before they left for the premiere, “Sunday Rose was dancing around the living room,” the Oscar winner, 43, told Us.

Adds Urban, 43, of his little girl’s skills, “I’m your typical proud dad.”

And if Sunday decides to forgo showbiz, she could have a future as a stylist.

“She loves makeup,” Kidman told Us, adding that she often helps her prep for premieres. “She’s not allowed to wear it out of the house, obviously, but she pops on a little blush and some lip gloss!”

[From Us Weekly]

Sunday Rose is what… two years younger than Suri Cruise? Something like that. And little Suri is already styling her poor mother, plus wearing heels and makeup and diamonds and running Xenu’s empire, I guess. And all Sunday has is some lip gloss. Sad! But I bet Sunday does have a good voice – both of her parents are musically talented, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

Photos courtesy of Fame.

These are new photos from last night’s premiere of Rabbit Hole in NYC. Nicole Kidman trotted out her BotoxFace and her husband, in that order. Nicole is wearing a navy Clements Ribeiro Spring 2011 dress that I don’t care for that much – it’s very fussy and old-lady, in my opinion. I wish Nicole would go back to her old style, when she used to wear avant-garde designers and lots of black. But Nicole recently talked about how as she’s gotten older, her interest in fashion and being a groundbreaking style icon has decreased: “Because I have a child now, I dress much simpler these days. When I was in my 20s the thing I loved was fashion. I loved to get really dressed up. I think I’m less interested in fashion now and more interested in simple chic. I still think it’s important to have some sense of ‘not letting yourself go’ though. You’ve got to make an effort, even after you have a child and even after you’re married.” Yeah… Nicole, you already HAD TWO CHILDREN before, when you used to care about fashion. Remember Bella? Remember Connor? Also, does anyone think “making an effort” is Nicole-speak for “getting so many lip injections, my lips look like they’re about to fall off my face”?

Also, for those of you who were claiming yesterday that Nicole’s slight weight gain was a pregnancy, her rep denied it, telling Gossip Cop that Nicole was “absolutely, positively NOT pregnant”. See? I told you. She’s just put on about five pounds in her abdomen, and it’s fine. She just needs to go up one dress size, and no one will notice.

Nic’s Rabbit Hole costar Sandra Oh was on the red carpet too. The dress is bad enough, but the dress with the tights and shoes… God, it’s just hideous. Fashion fail, Sandra.

And a little Aaron Eckhart, looking dapper and handsome:

Guess who else was at the premiere? THE HAMM. And The Hamm looks rough as hell too. I have no idea why Jon Hamm and his girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt were there, other then they wanted to see the movie – neither one of them is in it, I mean. And it wasn’t really the best appearance for either, although Nicole Kidman’s BotoxFace probably wants to stand next to Jennifer, just to look better by comparison. As for The Hamm… he just looks tired and cold and like he doesn’t know what to do with his hair. That being said, I still want to lick him.

The Hamm says: “Is that your vagina? Can I buy her a drink?”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

These are new photos of Nicole Kidman in NYC this morning, entering the Good Morning America set (the video of the interview is below). I am seriously not trying to be mean, but Nicole is no longer a sample size, and she should stop trying to harness herself into those size zero or size two clothes. I’m not saying she looks bad – at all. Nicole looks great when she’s got a little meat on her bones, and who doesn’t gain a little weight in their stomach, right? I’m just saying, this dress is wrong, and she should have either gone one or two sizes up, or just gone for a different look.

Anyway, Nic was on GMA to promote her leading role in Rabbit Hole, the film that is getting some critical buzz. Notably, EW’s critic said that it was one of Nicole’s finer performances of the past few years, mainly because her face is now capable of some movement. To me, the film looks like the kind of weepy grief porn that is made just to be some kind of Oscar-bait, but whatever. I’m happy for Nicole, and I’m happy that she’s returning as a somewhat interesting actress. I winced several times during the interview though – even though we’re hearing about “The Return of Nicole Kidman’s Face”, she is still tweaking that sh-t. And as Lainey says, the third lip is still there. Plus: she looks strangely overly-rouged.

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman were on Oprah yesterday, and I think recent coverage of the slightly additional movement in Nicole’s face has been accurate. She still looked like a delicate porcelain doll. Both Nicole and Keith have projects to promote, with Nicole promoting her new movie Rabbit Hole, out in limited release December 17 in the US, and Keith promoting his upcoming album, Get Closer, out November 16. They each said some very emotional, personal things about each other and their daughter Sunday Rose, two, and I was struck by how alike they are. I’ve found Nicole to be affected and overly flowery, but she seems to have met her match in Keith. They come across as deeply in love and more than willing to share it with the world. Here’s some of what they told Oprah. Keith also read a love note to Nicole, which is included in his CD liner notes:

Keith on how Nicole saved him from addiction early in their marriage
Reality hit home when Nicole and a few close friends staged at intervention for Keith. “It was really a profound moment in so many ways. Then, the way in which Nic handled that moment was just perfect,” Keith says. “Everything was just designed, I believe, for that moment to fuse us together.”

At first, Keith says he questioned whether he should go to rehab so soon after getting married. “[I thought], ‘Surely let’s give it a few years so we’ve got some solidity, because this kind of thing could tear us apart,’” Keith says. “‘This could just destroy us.’”

Ultimately, he decided it was time to get help. Keith left the same night as the intervention for treatment. “I just said, ‘I don’t want to do anything but go,’” he says. “I didn’t care about anything else.”

On how Nicole opened his heart
Early in his relationship with Nicole, Keith says they went to a park. While sitting on a bench, he says he asked her, “How’s your heart?”

“I didn’t know why I asked that question,” Keith says. “I’d never asked anybody that before. I don’t know what answer I was expecting.”

She answered, “It’s open.”

“It was not only beautiful because it said so much about her, but it instantly made me ask myself: ‘Is mine? Is my heart open?’” Keith says. “‘Or is it 80 percent open, but I’ve got a little exit strategy? If I do, then why is that?’”

As anyone who’s ever loved and lost knows, once you’ve had your heart broken, it’s hard to love again. For this reason, Keith says he was scared. “I looked back and realized that I stayed in this pattern because I wasn’t really loving,” he says. “I hadn’t met the right person. I wasn’t the right person, but I wasn’t really giving myself fully. I was holding back because I was scared.”

His love letter to Nicole in the liner notes to his CD
“Nicole Mary—I continue to be brought to my knees by this love of ours… I am in awe of how this blessed family we are creating stretches and fearlessly opens my vulnerable heart…and I just want to be a better man, for you, and father for our heavenly Sunday Rose and have you go to sleep every night knowing that no one has ever, or will ever, love you as much as I do…and all we need is faith.”

Nicole on her marriage
“I think marriage is about, every day, trying to make it better and working through things and when things are tough, saying, ‘I’m going to come to you and talk,’” Nicole says. “We’re just very tight, and we stay really tight.”

Nicole on Keith’s love letter
“He’s got a way with words. The thing that really touches me is that he says, ‘Let me put it into action.’

[From Oprah]

It’s all very sappy to me, but if that’s how they roll and they’re both deeply committed and in love good for them. It’s like Keith is even more of a romantic than Nicole, and she seems to eat it up. I don’t remember hearing that Nicole staged an intervention for Keith to go to rehab. It must have been a tough thing to deal with so early in their marriage, and seems to have made their relationship much stronger.

It’s alleged that Nicole Kidman may have possibly have had work done on her face, notably Botox. Allegedly.

Now that Nicole has a new film coming out, her performance will be under scrutiny, as will the movability of her face, according to critic Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Next month Nicole Kidman stars in Rabbit Hole, the sad drama about a couple quietly falling apart after the accidental death of their 4-year-old son. She plays a grieving wife and mother opposite Aaron Eckhart as her husband; Dianne Wiest is her mother. The movie’s opening is some weeks away (it’s in limited release Dec. 17), but I can already anticipate two consequences in the national chatter: First, there will be prognostication about Nicole Kidman’s chances for an Oscar nomination. Second, there will be talk about Nicole Kidman’s face.

[Entertainment Weekly, print edition, December 3, 2010]

Nicole is known for her porcelain skin, but lately it seems as if she’s gone to extremes to keep it wrinkle-free. Allegedly. And to give an Oscar-worthy performance, shouldn’t an actress be able to express grief through subtle movements of her face besides fake tears?

This debate is a polarizing one for Hollywood. How an actress looks off the screen is often as scrutinized as her performance in a film, and in this day of instant digital cameras that get so close you can count nose hairs, some actresses have seemingly become addicted to trying to look youthful and instead look freakish. Right, Nicole? Allegedly.

For what it’s worth, Kidman’s famous features do move — a little more — in Rabbit Hole. By whatever methods she has employed, the actor currently looks somewhat softer and a little more natural, playing a woman nearly catatonic with grief. And insofar as increased facial pliability will expand her work options, refocus critical attention on her considerable acting skills, and get Internet snark off her case and back where it belongs on the cases of talentless celebutards with plastic-surgery addictions, I say, Great! Show us your flaws, Nic! So you at your “worst” are better than we are on our very best days!

…The fact is, physical enhancement is as much a professional requirement for an actor aspiring to Hollywood fame as strength training is for an athlete aiming for the NFL. With the pressures on movie stars (particularly female), first by an industry (particularly male) that pays lip service to “reality” while obsessively promoting what’s young and hot, and in turn by us, the audience, it’s a wonder more actors, both male and female, don’t lose sight of what’s right and natural about their own bodies.

[Entertainment Weekly, print edition, December 3, 2010]

Maybe life with husband Keith Urban and daughter Sunday has chilled Nicole Kidman out so that she’s starting to realize how lovely she is without Botox and lip-plumpers. Allegedly.

“Nic listened to her heart against people’s advice and even her own instincts,” he [Urban] says of her standing by him. “I can’t put into words how I feel about what she did. My life is one thank-you to her….There wouldn’t be Sunny without Nic, because she really saved my life, so my instincts are for Nic to know she’s the No. 1 girl in my life and Sunday is No. 2,” he says. “Mom and Dad have got to be tight with each other — otherwise the whole thing’s unbalanced.”

[People, print edition, December 6, 2010]

I think Nicole is one of the most talented actresses working today, and I’ve always thought it was a shame she feels the need to Botox her face into a blank wall. Allegedly. I’ve admired the way she carries herself although she admits that red carpets scare her to death. The Others is one of my favorite scary movies, and I wish her all the happiness with Keith that she had sucked from her soul by Tom Cruise. So, to echo Lisa Schwarzbaum, ease up, Nicole, on trying to look like all those 20-year-olds trying to make names for themselves — you can act circles around the Gossip Girls and 90210s.

Rabbit Hole opens in limited release December 17, just in time for Oscar season.

These are new photos of Nicole Kidman out and about in NYC yesterday, with her daughter Sunday Rose and Keith Urban. It’s actually pretty rare that we get a non-Nashville sighting of the whole family together, so I just wanted to show these photos. Nicole looks… I mean… sure. I go back and forth on the state of her frozen face. Sometimes it looks completely crazy and jacked, sometimes it looks almost normal. She must really have mixed feelings about what she does her face, and maybe sometimes she stops for a brief moment? That’s just a theory.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention Sunday - she’s starting to look like Nicole, isn’t she? I always thought Sunday looked more like Keither, but it looks like Sunday’s turning into a fair-skinned ginger beauty. I really love these photos of them – they all look so sweet together.

Nicole Kidman’s Botox Face is killing me. Killing me with laughter! I’ll say it again – I actually like Nicole. She used to be a wonderful actress, and she still amuses me to no end. She’s so unbelievably beautiful – or else, she would be if she would stop with the ‘Tox. Nicole is in Toronto right now – she’s promoting her work in Rabbit Hole, a film she did with Aaron Eckhart, who is in some of these photos. The film is about a married couple (Kidman and Eckhart) who are grieving after the accidental death of their son. Which is the plot of many, many movies, it seems. Grief porn. Anyway, Nicole told reporters: “I’ve nursed the film from the very beginning. I read a review of the play Rabbit Hole when it played in New York and then my company Blossom Films went after the rights. I had a sense, even before I’d seen the play, that it could be opened out from a stage play to a big screen film. I felt it very deeply. It’s about how they move on with their lives and how they connect with the people in their lives. But there’s humor there as well, it’s not all bleak.” Sounds bleak to me.

Back to the photos and Nicole’s face. Now, I have no idea what possessed the photographers to get so close to Nic’s ToxFace. But the photos – and her expressions – oh my God. Am I being too harsh? Because I did find one photo where Nicole’s forehead is something less than marble-smooth:

Of course, after excerting herself for that one photo, she might have needed a nap. Also: I still swear those aren’t her real lips, although I will give her credit for toning her sh-t down, in general. This isn’t as bad as it has been.

Here are some photos from the premiere too… in some of the photos from the premiere, Nicole is doing the hand-on-belly thing, like she’s trying to start a rumor that she’s pregnant. Oh, Nicole. Get a new move!

Nicole & Aaron on Sept. 14, 2010. Credit: WENN.