~
~
|
 Nicole Kidman - a brief annotated profile
Edited by site author Douglas Eby. Nicole
Kidman has talked about
many
personal qualities and experiences
that relate to being a gifted and talented person with multiple abilities. Below are some of her quotes, plus comments by teachers, psychologists and other experts on gifted children and adults.
Divergent thinking Liz
Smith : Do you believe in reincarnation? Nicole Kidman : I don't know. There are times when I say "yes," it has to be true and other times, I don't. Liz Smith : That's so typical of you, seeing both sides of everything. Nicole
Kidman : That's
pretty
much the way I am.
I know it infuriates people. That's why I can't really argue with
people. My
mother always says to me, "Hey, hey, stop jumping around." But
I think that's what gives one the ability to be compassionate,
particularly
as a parent.
Shy & feeling like an impostor  Once they actually started making "Bewitched," Will Ferrell [as Darren] says he tried to be "as silly as possible around Nicole whenever I could think about it. It helped me feel not nervous." ... "He
would make me giggle," says Kidman, with a laugh. "I'm very shy. With
someone like Will, with a comedy like this, when dealing with people so
adept with it, I felt like a fish out of water. "They're going to look
at me to fire me. Which is what I always think anyway. He would coax me
out of my shell." [Los
Angeles
Times, June 18, 2005] "Every time I star in a film, I think
I cannot act. I've tried to pull out of almost every one I've done
because of sheer terror. I can always come up with a list of actresses
who would do better and try to convince the director to cast someone
else. My mother keeps
telling me to call it quits. She thinks my nature is too fragile for
acting. She'd love it if I was a writer and had a more secluded life. I
agree." [Reuters Feb 17 2003]
"I am very shy - really shy - I even had a stutter as a kid,
which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I
don't like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don't like
going to a party by myself." Nicole Kidman
[Talk mag., Sept.2000]
Complex emotions
She clearly has a strong conscience, and it's not for nothing that her gang calls her Church Lady. As she puts it, "My mom's always saying, 'You shouldn't put so much emphasis on being good.' " I notice her eyes filling up as she says this. "It makes me cry." she acknowledges. "Because the weight of one's conscience can be so debilitating, you know? I really want to die without having done things that I deeply regret... "I
can be led astray. I find it tempting, enticing, and I'm pretty much up
for anything... [but] the guilt, if I do something, weighs me down...
Some people can live the other way. They have some sort of latch that
locks the stuff in. I don't." From
article: Spellbound, by Ingrid Sischy, Vanity Fair July 2005
~ ~ ~ ~
"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." ......[CNN.com Dec 30, 2002; photo as Virginia Woolf.] Relationships
.. Nicole
Kidman
told Vanity Fair magazine that her desire to be seen as a serious
actress
led to the demise of her marriage [to Tom Cruise]. ...
She says, "I felt I didn't deserve to be there in my own right, and throughout I wasn't there as Nicole, I was there as Tom's wife. "I
didn't have to have this huge career. And this makes me sad, but I
would
probably choose a marriage and an intact family over my career. But I
think
I had to choose. I think (the marriage) would have come down to it. I
suppose
it wasn't meant to be."
Perfectionism  "She can be quite murderously challenging in her perfectionism. Take Twenty: 'Are you sure that's good enough?' [Kidman says.] "We're going, [wearily] 'Yeah.' " Director
Jane Campion about working with Nicole Kidman on "Portrait of a Lady" Campion also said of her: "She gets a bee in her bonnet, and
she's off. She's excited. And the passion and the feeling is stronger
than any sense of censorship, and I like that."
Social Activism
Kidman publicly supports a variety of charities and causes. She has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Australia since 1994. She has worked to help raise money for and draw attention to the plight of the most disadvantaged children in Australia and around the world. In 2004, she was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the United Nations. On January 26, 2006 Kidman received Australia's highest civilian honour when she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, for "service to the performing arts as an acclaimed motion picture performer, to health care through contributions to improve medical treatment for women and children and advocacy for cancer research, to youth as a principal supporter of young performing artists, and to humanitarian causes in Australia and internationally." ... She was also nominated goodwill ambassador for UNIFEM. Kidman joined the 'Little Tee Campaign' for Breast Cancer Care to design T-shirts or vests to raise money for breast cancer. Kidman's mother, Janelle, is a breast cancer survivor. From Wikipedia profile.
> Related
page: Social activism
Dreaming  "The things that go on in my head are far more interesting
than what actually happens. My fantasies are still very, very strong.
... You live a third of your life when you dream. "So you may as well live in your dreams -- the way you want to be living. The way you want to be. I love lying in darkness." Nicole Kidman [Vanity Fair July 2005] Related page: Dreamwork
Early Life
 "My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination,
but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it,"
says Nicole Kidman. "By the time I was a teenager, I had developed skills as a writer, and my father encouraged me to think about a career in journalism. I began keeping a diary, which I maintain to this day." By puberty, she towered above most of the other girls and boys in her class and thought of herself as "the ugliest person alive on earth." She found release in acting class, pretending to be other people. On weekends, when most kids were at the beach, Kidman was often alone on the stage of the school theater. "I would just lock myself in there," she says. "I thought it was fantastic having that stage all to myself. I'd be teased about going off to the theater instead of the beach with everyone else. I felt like an outsider, but it is character building not to be a pretty child who just bats her eyes and gets her way." At fourteen, she landed her first professional role... by the time she turned seventeen, she had left school to spend seven months on a film for Disney called Five Mile Creek. ... [Cosmopolitan, Jul 1991] Photo: Patrick
Demarchelier - see photography
~ ~ ~ ~
GT
Adults blog gifted/talented/high ability Highly
Sensitive People Intensity / sensitivity resources : articles sites books Introversion /
shyness. ~ ~ ~ |
|
Nicole Kidman is new U.N. goodwill ambassador for women
Related Talent Development
Resources pages :