Nicole's poem of lost love

After starring in the brilliant epic Cold Mountain, Nicole Kidman is planning something on a rather smaller scale - a radio play for the BBC.

And it's not even something she wants to be paid for. Nicole and Cold Mountain director Anthony Minghella plan to record a verse narrative called The Glass Essay, by Anne Carson, a Canadian poet. It's a haunting piece about a woman who reflects on the Bronte sisters' lives after her lover has left her.

'It's something I have to do,' Nicole told me. 'I'll just go into a recording studio with Anthony. No lights, no cameras, no make-up. Just the two of us. I'll be reading the poem and Anthony will direct me.'

Minghella, who travelled with the Oscar-winning actress to Sydney for Cold Mountain's Australian gala screening, told me that the 38-page poem, from a collection called Glass, Irony And God, will be recorded on audio tape 'once Nicole and I are in the same country for a long enough period to do it'.

No deals have been done yet with a broadcaster, but Minghella hopes it might be transmitted on BBC Radio late next year.

Meanwhile, Kidman was hoping that playwrights David Hare and Patrick Marber would take seriously her plea for them to write a new play for her. She asked Marber after seeing his work, After Miss Julie, at the Donmar.

'I need a new play. I have asked both Patrick and David, but they ignore me, so I'm asking them through you, Baz,' she pleaded.

Somehow, the conversation turned to Master And Commander with its all-male cast, including Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.

'The world needs girls,' Kidman suddenly declared. 'You need some girls in movies. The world needs girls, movies need girls,' she insisted as she did a sexy wiggle.

She'll get no argument from me on that.