Sydney - Hollywood actor Nicole Kidman denied Tuesday she
was embarrassed by her performance in Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia
and fled her homeland for fear of what the critics would say about
the country's costliest film.
Last week Britain's Daily Mail quoted Kidman saying in a November
21 interview with a Sydney radio station that she 'squirmed in her
seat,' couldn't 'connect emotionally at all with it,' and 'ran' from
the expected bad reviews.
Kidman's Sydney-based publicist said the Daily Mail report
misrepresented what the 41-year-old actor had said.
'It's quite ridiculous for anyone to believe the reports if they
listened to the actual interview,' the spokeswoman told Sydney's
Daily Telegraph. 'It's hard to believe some of the world's media have
fallen for it.'
Kidman told the radio station that she was uncomfortable at the
Sydney premiere because of the adulation she was receiving in her
hometown and because she always blushed to see herself on screen.
She said she never reads reviews of her films, good or bad, and
that she always found it impossible to connect emotionally with her
finished work.
In a transcript of the interview, Kidman quotes film director
Stanley Kubrick as saying, 'When you read the script for the first
time as an actor, that's the only time when you'll have an emotional
response to it.'
Australia, a film four years in the making, has been panned by
critics and had disappointing sales around the world. Within weeks of
opening in Australia, the World War II epic was being beaten at the
box office by Kung Fu Panda and five other films.
The 165-minute marathon starring Kidman and compatriot Hugh
Jackman is unlikely to feature in the Oscar awards or stay in cinemas
beyond the end of the month.
The Australian government has come in for criticism for funding
around a quarter of the film's 150-million-US-dollar budget and
gearing a tourism promotion campaign around a film that has been
termed a flop.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story