Fun Fil

Nicole Kidman that inspires vitriol in people – especially women. Why has this gangly bloodnut from Sydney’s northern suburbs, an internationally-feted home-grown movie star, become fair game in the new spectator sport of online lynching?
I met Nicole just before Christmas and interviewed her for a profile that is the cover story in this month’s Australian Women’s Weekly.
It was a relatively brief encounter, as audiences with Hollywood royalty tend to be, but it was enough for me to come away liking the woman.
In person, Nicole is warm and engaging. Moreover,
she’s funny. Twenty years in Hollywood, I’m pleased to report, have done nothing to blunt her rapier Aussie wit, her tendency to self-deprecation or her keen sense of the absurd.
The Weekly interview was the only Australian magazine chat that Nicole consented to while she was briefly in Sydney to take part in the great ‘Oprah Does Australia’ spectacular. And while it would be ridiculous to claim some kind of insider knowledge based on a 45-minute encounter, it was nevertheless enough time for a few perceptions about Nicole to be altered, appreciations to be gained and opinions to be formed.
And the thing that struck me as I walked away from the interview was how strange it is that one of our country’s most successful artistic exports inspires such extreme reactions in people.