Nicole Kidman

Born in the U.S. but raised Down Under, Kidman began performing as a teen and was already well known in Australia when she came to Hollywood to costar with Tom Cruise in the 1990 racing flick Days of Thunder. Within months they were married, and the 23-year-old's profile grew. She took on a variety of roles in various film genres: thrillers (Malice), tearjerkers (My Life), historical epics (Far and Away, opposite her husband) and one blockbuster (Batman Forever). But it was her seductive turn as a wickedly aspiring newscaster in the 1995 black comedy To Die For that, for some, proved her true talent. Kidman worked steadily for the rest of the decade and collaborated once more with Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut. But in 2001 their 11-year marriage very publicly fell apart as her career heated up, with an Oscar-nominated role in the musical extravaganza Moulin Rouge and a critically lauded performance as a ghost-plagued mother in The Others. The next year Kidman donned a prosthetic nose and brown wig to play troubled British author Virginia Woolf in The Hours and won an Academy Award for her portrayal. While film roles continued to pour in, including missteps in the comedies Stepford Wives and Bewitched, Kidman became the face of Chanel No. 5 and also signed on for Nintendo DS advertisements in Europe. In June 2006, she walked down the aisle a second time, marrying country musician Keith Urban in their Aussie homeland, and gave birth to a daughter in July of 2008. That same year, Kidman and Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrman found box-office success once again with the epic romance Australia. Off-screen, Kidman dedicates her time to family, UNICEF Australia as a Goodwill Ambassador and writing short stories. ~ Rovi