Hollywood is sooo over for West End star Nicole

Hollywood star Nicole Kidman in London rehearsals

NICOLE Kidman has revealed how she prefers appearing on the London stage to starring in a Hollywood blockbuster.

 

The Oscar-winning actress, whose new play Photograph 51 previewed in the West End last night, said she always felt like an outsider in Hollywood.

The Moulin Rouge star, who left Hollywood nine years ago following her divorce from actor Tom Cruise, said: “I do not miss the Hollywood life, definitely not.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt I fit in. I’ve always danced to the beat of my own drum.

“I’m left-handed; I think laterally. A bit of an outsider.

If you’re committing to a fame path, that’s a different thing, but for me that’s almost like the burden that comes with it

“I still put on a gown and go on the red carpet, and that’s when you’re all for a moment circling each other, and I know all these people. If you’re committing to a fame path, that’s a different thing, but for me that’s almost like the burden that comes with it.”

Kidman, 48, lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her second husband, the country singer Keith Urban, and their two daughters.

She was inspired to go on the stage after watching Wolf Hall star Mark Rylance’s “incredibly good performance” in the critically-acclaimed West End play Jerusalem, she said.

Describing going backstage afterwards, she said: “I went back and they were all there, hanging out and sweaty, in it together and I thought, how great, you live or die together! I love that, being part of a group.”

Film sets, she said, can be lonely by comparison.

 

“[Filming] is bitsy and people are coming and going... you can have two people working on a film who never meet each other.”

She added that she preferred “draughty” rehearsal rooms to big trailers, saying: “The days of the big trailer have gone, unless you’re doing massive 3D movies, which is not the kind of place that I seek out anyway.”

Kidman plays pioneering DNA scientist Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51 at the Noel Coward Theatre, her first appearance on the London stage since she starred in The Blue Room 17 years ago, a performance that was described as “pure theatrical Viagra” by one critic.

She recalled how she had just finished filming Eyes Wide Shut with Cruise and that director Stanley Kubrick advised her against doing the play.

“I can remember Stanley saying, ‘What are you doing? You’re insane to be doing that’.”

Reclusive Kubrick later came to watch her performance at the Donmar Warehouse.

“We didn’t even have a meal afterwards; Stanley really didn’t go out,” Kidman told a weekend magazine.

“But afterwards he was so supportive, good on you, you did it.”