Women Affairs

EDITH M. LEDERER Actress and United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman speaks Tuesday during a news conference at U.N. headquarters, urging world leaders and ordinary people to join the global fight to end violence against women. The actress, seven months pregnant and passionately committed to her role as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said the violence was probably the "most widespread human rights violation of our time." "One in three women will encounter violence in some way, shape or form against them in their lifetime," Kidman told a news conference at U.N. headquarters. "That's an extraordinary statistic. Yet do we ever hear it?" The 40-year-old Australian star became a goodwill ambassador in January 2006 for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, known as UNIFEM. Its acting executive director, Joanne Sandler, said Kidman wanted to focus on an issue "where she could mak...

Staring into those big brown eyes for nine months, it is easy to see how Nicole Kidman had her heart stolen by 11-year-old Brandon Walters. Brandon is a young actor from Broome who was plucked from obscurity to play what has been described as the most pivotal role in Baz Luhrmann's epic $100 million blockbuster Australia . As filming entered its final stages at Fox Studios last week he told Luhrmann he would miss making movies. And it is no secret Kidman will miss Brandon, too. Details of his character, Nullah, are scant, but PS understands Nullah lives on the outback cattle property of Kidman's character, Lady Sarah Ashley, and becomes a central figure in the relationship between Lady Ashley and a local drover (Hugh Jackman). Lady Ashley takes a maternal role in the boy's life. Evidently Kidman and Brandon have established a relationship similar to the one on screen, with visitors to the set revealing the Oscar winner and the young actor have developed a sign language ...

Jano Gibson and Andrew Hornery After the loud claps of thunder and torrential rain came the screams. "Nicole! Nicole! Nicole!" yelled photographers and fans lining the red carpet at last night's Australian premiere of the fantasy adventure film The Golden Compass at the State Theatre. "It's nice to be able to show up and just say thank you to the fans, and also thank you to the country actually," said Nicole Kidman, who plays the glamorous but sinister scholar Marisa Coulter in the movie adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Dressed in body-hugging, shiny silver pants and jacket, and holding an umbrella, Kidman signed autographs for some of the hundreds of fans who turned out in the rain with traffic closed on Market Street and Pitt Street. Kidman revealed she was drawn to playing the role after receiving a personal appeal from Pullman. "[He] wrote me an amazing letter telling me that when he was writing the novels he had me in ...

Nicole Kidman has taken another step up the celebrity ladder with the unveiling of her very own wax work at Madame Tussauds. Draped in a glamorous floor-length red gown, Kidman's wax work has taken its place at the world-famous museum alongside models of fellow Hollywood A-list celebrities including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Despite her long career as an actress, it is the first time the museum has created a Kidman wax work. Designers spent about three months creating the figure, unveiled overnight in London, based on thousands of photographs of the Australian actress. "Nicole is wearing a stunning floor-length red dress which really emphasises her flawless beauty and grace, idolised by so many women around the world," Madame Tussauds spokesman Ben Lovett said. "There's no mistaking that she is a hugely popular global celebrity and we are delighted to be unveiling her." Kidman's latest film, The Golden Compass, opens in Australia on December 26. On l...

Yuko Narushima The paparazzo photographer Jamie Fawcett was yesterday accused of making up stories after he told the NSW Supreme Court he had touched but not planted a bug outside Nicole Kidman's house. The photographer also agreed it was his view that celebrities such as Kidman only had a right to privacy if they were concealed behind the walls of a house, and said that the actress had sworn at him. Fawcett said he was waiting outside Kidman's Darling Point home on January 23, 2005, when he saw her security guard, Malcolm Carter, behaving strangely. Mr Carter turned around 360 degrees before crouching near a small wall, Fawcett said. "I thought it was odd and I went up to the place where he had done this and had a look," he said. Fawcett said he picked up what appeared to be a listening device before putting it back and walking to his car. "I sat there and pondered about what had happened," he said, worrying later that his prints would be on the bug, wh...

Oscar winner Nicole Kidman is one of Hollywood's top actresses, but she says for the moment her marriage to country music star Keith Urban takes priority over her career. Kidman, who says she "spontaneously" chooses most of her roles, has had some recent high-profile flops, like 2004s The Stepford Wives, 2005s Bewitched and 2007s The Invasion, since winning an Oscar in 2003 for playing novelist Virginia Woolf in the The Hours. While promoting her latest movie, Margot at the Wedding in New York, the Australian actress, 40, said her main concern was her relationship with Urban, whom she married in June 2006 in Sydney. Grammy-winning Urban spent two months in a rehab centre last year, but did not disclose the nature of his treatment. He has acknowledged an addiction to cocaine in the past and credits Kidman with seeing him through his crisis. As for Kidman she told a group of reporters: "I just recently married so that's my priority. I love my work but at the same t...

Oscar-winning Australian actress Nicole Kidman screamed and feared for her life during an incident involving a Sydney paparazzo, a judge has been told. Giving evidence in the NSW Supreme Court today, John Manning said he was driving Kidman to her parents' Sydney home on January 23, 2005. He said their car was followed by a jeep driven by photographer Jamie Fawcett. Mr Manning said he had to swerve his car at one stage when Fawcett's car drove over a median strip. He said Kidman was "screaming" and saying things such as: "This has to stop. Call the police." "She was fearing for her life and she said someone is going to get killed," he told the court. He was giving evidence at a defamation hearing Fawcett brought over an article published in The Sun-Herald newspaper in January 2005. A jury has already found the article defamed Fawcett, and Justice Carolyn Simpson is now considering any defences brought forward by the paper's publishers Fairfax Me...

Nicole Kidman has begun piling on the pounds - not because she's pregnant, but for her next movie. The 40-year-old Australian movie star has already added 4.5kg to her svelte frame and plans to double her weight gain in coming weeks before she starts filming The Reader. "She is naturally very slim and loves to run and swim so she is always very toned," an unnamed close friend of Kidman's told The Mail on Sunday newspaper. "The part she plays demands that she gets fatter throughout the movie as her character slips into middle age. "Nicole was originally planning to use prosthetics but was told by the director, Stephen Daldry, that it would be more realistic if she gained the weight." Kidman is following in the footsteps of fellow actress Renee Zellweger, who packed on more than 13kg to play Bridget Jones in two movies by chowing down on pizza, peanut butter sandwiches and fast food. Kidman's new diet includes drinking daily protein shakes and eating ...

Nicole Kidman has fame, money and success in droves, but the Australian actress has revealed they did nothing to ease her loneliness before she married country singer Keith Urban. Oscar winner Kidman found it hard to meet a potential partner after her decade-long marriage to Tom Cruise ended in 2001, she said in a candid interview published in Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper. "When I was alone I became very isolated and felt very lonely and it was difficult to meet someone," Kidman was quoted as saying. "I realised you can have so many beautiful things around you and if you don't have someone in your life to share it with, it doesn't mean that much." Kidman, 40, spoke of her love for 39-year-old Urban, whom she married in June last year, less than four months before he entered rehab at the famous Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol abuse. "We were two lonely people who met at a time when we could open up to each other," Kidman said. "I'm ju...

Urban’s rep Paul Freundlich has revealed to the Tennessean that the couple have purchased land in Music City in order to build a farm. Nicole Kidman and hubby Keith Urban’s new home will be on a farm. The couple have already packed up their stuff and put their home in a gated community in the Green Hills neighbourhood of Nashville up for sale for 2.45 million dollars. Now, Urban’s rep Paul Freundlich has revealed to the Tennessean that the couple have purchased land in Music City in order to build a farm.