Nicole Kidman no longer afraid of Virginia Wolf

Movie also co-stars Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore

By David German The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- Nicole Kidman used to be afraid of Virginia Woolf, preferring the romantic worlds of the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen to Woolf's demanding prose.

When it came time to play Woolf on screen in "The Hours," however, Kidman embraced the British author heart and soul.

"If you take on a role, you take it on. You don't have somebody else step in and do the hard bits," Kidman, 35, said in an interview for "The Hours," which co-stars Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore and is based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

Kidman agreed to wear a prosthetic nose that made her almost unrecognizable, a look that vexed her two children, who referred to her as "that Woolf woman." Rather than let a double do last-minute close-ups of Woolf's hand as she wrote, Kidman insisted on returning to London from the United States to shoot the scenes, learning to write right-handed.

She refused to let a double do any takes in a cold, rushing river where the crew re-enacted Woolf's suicide. Above all, Kidman now adores the richly internalized, frank and fanciful works of the author, who killed herself in 1941 at age 59.

Growing up in Australia, Kidman had sampled Woolf's works but found them dense and oppressive.

"I'd run away from her. As a schoolgirl, you run toward the Brontes, you run toward Austen," Kidman said.

"Discovering her in my 30s was when I needed to discover Virginia Woolf. Because I think you need to have some experiences in life, you need to have an intellectual capacity to handle Virginia, which you don't necessarily have -- well, I didn't have -- as a teenager," said the actress, who prepared for "The Hours" by reading other Woolf novels along with diaries, letters and biographies.

"The Hours" follows a day in the lives of three women: the melancholy Woolf as she begins writing "Mrs. Dalloway" in the 1920s; a despondent 1950s housewife (Moore) reading Woolf's novel; and a contemporary incarnation of Mrs. Dalloway (Streep) planning a party for a friend with AIDS (Ed Harris).

"Mrs. Dalloway" and Woolf novels such as "The Waves" and "To the Lighthouse" are difficult and unsettling reads, applying nonlinear plotting to modernist themes of feminism, mortality and isolation.

Kidman came to Woolf and "The Hours" at a suitably dark time in her own life, after a miscarriage and amid the breakup of her marriage to Tom Cruise last year.

"I was pretty nihilistic in terms of my view of what it was all about," she said. "Where we were going. Why I was existing in the world, really. Why, was the big question. So it was sort of the perfect time to encounter Mrs. Woolf. Because you're raw, emotionally raw. Your ability to understand with compassion somebody else's struggle is just there. ... It's cathartic, because it means you're not alone."

In Cruise's shadow

During her 11 years with Cruise, Kidman had gained acclaim with the film "To Die For" and such theater works as "The Blue Room." Yet she generally stood in the shadow of Cruise, with whom she co-starred in "Days of Thunder," "Far and Away" and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."

Since the breakup, Kidman emerged with an Academy Award nomination for last year's musical hit "Moulin Rouge," and more critical and commercial success with the ghost tale "The Others."

"It's given me belief in myself, which I didn't necessarily have," she said. "One of the things I've had to grapple with is just who am I, where do I fit in now in the world if I'm not, you know, if I'm not with my partner anymore. That's where you sort of try and put your two feet on the ground and go, 'OK, I'm going to take my steps forward alone."'

Her romantic life now is "just, umm, nowhere, to be blatantly honest," Kidman said. "I'm getting there. I just am slow. I don't rush into things. And I'm a little gun-shy."

While she flopped in the low-budgeted heist romance "Birthday Girl" early in 2002, Kidman has an impressive range of upcoming films.

She just finished shooting Anthony Minghella's "Cold Mountain," based on Charles Frazier's Civil War novel, in which she plays the sweetheart of a wounded Confederate soldier. Jude Law and Renee Zellweger co-star.

Also in the can are "The Human Stain," based on Philip Roth's novel, in which Kidman plays a janitor involved with a classics professor (Anthony Hopkins), and the 1930s-era drama "Dogville," directed by Lars von Trier ("Dancer in the Dark").

"This last batch of films has confirmed her place as one of the leading actors of her generation who's at the top of her game," said "The Hours" director Stephen Daldry. "She's up for any challenge. She allows herself emotionally to go into depths and areas that are genuinely risky."

After a long vacation with family, Kidman begins shooting the dark dramatic mystery "Birth" in February, then moves on to the comic thriller remake "The Stepford Wives," saying she needed something lighter to "make fun of myself."

For "The Hours," she could wind up with a second straight Oscar nomination, possibly competing against both her co-stars. Streep and Kidman could be nominated for best actress for "The Hours," while Moore is competing in the supporting category but has lead-actress prospects for another film, "Far From Heaven."

"It would be lovely if we all got nominated. There's something about sharing a film with those two which is special," Kidman said. "But I think more than the ultimate competition for who wins, it's the nominations that are sort of the pat on the back. The other thing, it's like a juggling act. It would just be really lovely if we could all go together."