People talk 10/15

Kidman cruises through divorce, moves forward

LONDON -- Nicole Kidman has moved on since her divorce to fellow Hollywood star Tom Cruise, and she hopes others will follow suit.

"Everyone keeps asking me all the time, 'How are you? How are you?' I mean divorce is divorce and it's a really tough thing to go through," Kidman said in a television interview aired Saturday on the British Broadcasting Corp. "You have to pick yourself up and move forward and that is what I am doing."

Did the divorce sour her on the institution of marriage? "Oh no, I'd love to get married again," she said.

Kidman described her 11-year relationship with Cruise as a "fishbowl" that sometimes forced the couple to take extreme measures to protect their privacy. But it was an obstacle that often proved to have romantic consequences.

"We would see cities at night," she said. "We broke into the Coliseum -- climbed the fences and broke in. It's a way of dealing with being really well known, but still being able to see a city like Rome."

Actress to 'take hike' against breast cancer

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- "Jurassic Park" actress Tea Leoni hopes to increase breast cancer awareness with her participation in the sixth annual Take-A-Hike.

"She really is very committed at this. Her grandmother had breast cancer," said Take-A-Hike spokeswoman Brenda Himelfarb. "This is the fourth year that Tea has been involved."

The event, which benefits several breast cancer research organizations, involved taking participants for hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Leoni, original "Shaft" star Richard Roundtree and exercise guru Kathy Smith were among the celebrities who led participants on the trails Saturday.

The event coincided with breast cancer awareness month.

Songwriter says music comforts in time of crisis

LOS ANGELES -- Music could provide a comforting refuge and a venue for political expression after the terrorist attacks, says 35-year-old singer-songwriter Moby.

Moby, whose birthday is Sept. 11, said that in times of national crisis, more artists and audiences turn to activism and social commentary.

"Over the last few years, I think popular music has become kind of irrelevant for a lot of people. In times of crisis, people turn to music because it does have the ability to communicate, soothe and comfort," Moby said in a Los Angeles Times interview. "I just hope this will force people to re-evaluate their priorities so that they create music that speaks to people on a more profound level."

Moby, who broke into the mainstream with his best-selling 1999 album "Play," said that although the attacks may drive artists to be more political, he'll probably keep politics out of his music.

"Whenever I tried over the years to write political music, it ended up really strident or didactic," he said. "Trust me, I've written political songs, but thank goodness I've never released any of them."

Acting like teaching, Asner tells educators

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. -- Edward Asner, best known for his role as newsman Lou Grant on television, noted the similarities between acting and teaching during a convention of educators.

"They say teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatrics," said Asner, who spoke before thousands at the Northwestern Wisconsin Education Association convention on Friday.

Asner said great directors are like teachers because they both are in charge of getting a group of people to come to the same conclusion. The successful ones realize that different people get to that point in different ways.

The 71-year-old Asner is also a past president of the Screen Actors Guild.

Music producer Jones inducted into academy

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Music producer Quincy Jones, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and more than 200 other luminaries of politics, arts, science and the humanities were inducted Saturday into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jones thanked the academy for his membership and called a "new spirit of unity throughout the world" heartening and encouraging.

Referring indirectly to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, he said academy members are uniquely positioned to build understanding.

"We have an opportunity to speak to a wide public, here and abroad, about the value of employing our creative faculties -- our intellects, our expressiveness -- to overcome the hatred and suspicions that have proved so deadly and dangerous," Jones said during Saturday's ceremony at Harvard Law School.

Among this year's other inductees are Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, photographer Richard Avedon and Tony-award winning lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

-- From wire reports