Why Nicole is an unstoppable talent

Beauty is no handicap to an actress. It is not necessarily an asset, either. It can hide talent. It provokes the backhanded flattery of "just a pretty face."

Vivien Leigh hated the word "pretty", and Nicole Kidman must have sympathised with her stage-andscreen forerunner. But if ever her beholders simply saw beauty - and only that - in Kidman her triumph at the current Venice Film Festival has dispelled that false perspective.

Kidman has been feted as much as a performer in the occult suspense film The Others as for the star who stepped off the motor-launch on the Lido and took crowds, paparazzi and critics by storm. It's not that she has suddenly "emerged" from obscurity. She has made Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge and now The Others in a little over two years: the first testifying to her ability to outshine her co-star (and husband at the time) Tom Cruise; the second revealing a physical resilience that withstood the non-stop battery of song and dance to which she lent herself like an indestructible physical force; and the third film in which, for much of the time, she is asked simply to stand still and register a scale of emotions that would provide concert pieces for a full orchestra.

What has brought her to this point of art and celebrity? The experience of working with Stanley Kubrick, for one thing. A man who stretched his players to their limits and beyond undoubtedly helped Kidman dive into that reservoir of emotion which most film actors scarcely do more than scrutinise for a flattering self-reflection. Her defining moment in that film came - with ironies not then apparent to their public - when her character, an apparently happily married woman, disclosed her own longings for a sexual identity and emotional self-respect to her surprised and alarmed husband, played by Tom Cruise.

Though her role was far shorter than his in the film, her long monologue - virtually a declaration of independence - is what gave the film heart - and heat. Within a year Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman announced they were going their separate ways. One of Hollywood's "perfect" marriages had come apart.

Whether or not Kidman's glimpse of where her talent could take her when unaccompanied by Cruise was precipitated by her 18 months' exposure to her character in Eyes Wide Shut, she was certainly helped in establishing herself as an independent entity by her critical reception. David Hare's stage play, The Blue Room, followed even before the film was premiered. In it, she played a succession of roles - secretary, mistress, rich girl, poor girl, etc - and, save for a single co-star, had the stage to herself. She also briefly appeared naked.

The star who throws off all protection, physically and metaphorically, stands out from the crowd with a sharper focus on body, mind and talent. Again Kidman was praised for her chameleon acting - but, perhaps more important to a woman long tied to one man, for her undisguised and bold sexuality.

As rumours gathered around her marriage, which she and Tom Cruise warded off with considerable dignity before they surrendered to the inevitable onslaught of public prurience, the question of what Kidman-without-Tom would do next became more and more insistent. In a very real sense, though, it had already been answered. People had seen her "apart" from him, in image and now in reality.

A star at such a turning point creates even more excitement of the sort that the media are well attuned to orchestrate. What would she do next? Whom will she partner next? From the time stardom was born, these have been the questions that drive public curiosity, loyalty and worship.

In film terms, the first is the easier to answer. She did Moulin Rouge next: a taxing musical set notionally in the landmark cabaret hall of 19th century Paris, where Kidman played the star of the show being amorously pursued by a rich baron and a poor writer, though its director, Baz Luhrmann, pumped the spectacle up with all manner of contemporary pop music and cultural icons.