THE HOURS IN HER DAY NICOLE KIDMAN'S PERSONAL TRIALS HAVE DRIVEN HER TO SUCCESS IN 'THE HOURS' AND OTHER RECENT WORK.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Nicole Kidman does not want to talk about it.

But people are interested, so she knows she must. Reluctantly, against her better judgment, against her deep feelings about it. So, bravely ...

``Does it affect how I look at myself, that face not being my face?'' she says, wearily, of the prosthetic nose that transforms the 35-year-old Australian beauty into the patrician English writer Virginia Woolf in her latest movie, ``The Hours.'' ``Well, I change a lot anyway. When I'm at home, just with my kids and stuff, y'know, I'm just me, so I don't even think about it then. But at work you're thinking, 'How can I help to make this character believable?' ''

It isn't just the unrecognizable-making nose that turned Kidman's performance into one of the most celebrated of the year. She seems to virtually channel the brilliant but troubled soul of the suicidal author.

Adapted from the award-winning best seller by Michael Cunningham, ``The Hours'' also features such powerhouse talents as Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore, who play fictional women from different eras who are affected by Woolf's novel. But Kidman, who recently received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, had the toughest task.

And yes, that other thing that she would, more understandably, not care to address had at least as big an influence on the character's complex emotions as any latex proboscis.

``I don't like to talk about that stuff in direct relationship to it,'' she says of her divorce from Tom Cruise. ``That's too personal because your work is made up of you.''

But, that said, she knows people want to know.

``There's a loneliness to Virginia,'' Kidman notes. ``I think once you start to deal with loneliness and all of those issues, all of that feeds into your art. I don't want to sound pretentious about it, but so often you can't define what the lines are, and I don't think that you should.''

Prodigious profile

Whatever the influences - and they must be myriad - Kidman has been redefining her art furiously in recent years. But that's really nothing new for her; while the 5-foot-10-inch redhead improved the scenery in junk such as ``Days of Thunder'' (the film on which she and Cruise met), ``Batman Forever'' and ``The Peacemaker,'' Kidman always kept her hand in artistically worthwhile smaller films such as ``Flirting,'' ``To Die For'' and ``The Portrait of a Lady.''

Now, after impressing audiences with ``Moulin Rouge,'' ``The Others'' and ``Birthday Girl,'' ``The Hours'' is taking her to yet another level. And her next four features - ``The Human Stain,'' based on Philip Roth's novel; the popular Civil War saga ``Cold Mountain,'' directed by ``The English Patient's'' Anthony Minghella; ``Dogville,'' the latest from Danish auteur Lars von Trier (``Dancer in the Dark''); and ``Birth,'' which she starts shooting in a few weeks for acclaimed ``Sexy Beast'' writer-director Jonathan Glazer - sure sound like an exceptionally creamy crop.

So it's no surprise that the main talents behind the adaptation of ``The Hours'' had no doubt Kidman could meet their film's imposing challenge, regardless of what she looked like.

``Not in the slightest,'' confirms playwright David Hare, author of both the screenplay from Cunningham's ``unfilmable'' novel and the play that made Kidman a London stage sensation (and not just because she briefly appeared naked) several years back.

``You have to remember that I wrote 'The Blue Room' specifically for Nicole, so she's an actress that I already know incredibly well,'' says Hare. ``I have limitless respect for her capacities. In other words, it seemed to me a wonderful idea to cast her as Virginia Woolf. I knew Nicole would give it spirit and life as well as the torment. Here is a version of Virginia Woolf which is full of wit and mischief. I think Nicole gives it so much more oomph than the part normally has.''

``She is a genuinely transforming actress,'' adds the film's director, Stephen Daldry (``Billy Elliot''). ``I say that because there is a danger with so many movie stars that, in fact, the movie has to work toward fitting around their own particular and peculiar qualities. This was not the case; we needed someone who could do something extraordinarily different and very contemporary, given the nature of the character. We had no questions in our minds that Nicole was able to do that; I think she had more questions herself.''

``I didn't want to, I tried to pull out,'' says Kidman. ``I actually called my agent and said, 'I can't do it, I don't want to work, I don't want to do this, this isn't the right thing for me to do, it's too much at this stage, and I just need to hibernate.'

``And he and my friends all said, 'Get on the plane and go; go and get lost in it.' And that's what the art is for at this stage: to let it have some kind of cathartic effect on you.''

Mystery method

Kidman's reluctance to attribute the performance to makeup or personal emotions is actually an outgrowth of artistic honesty rather than an effort to avoid certain topics. Ask how she really got so convincingly deep into Virginia Woolf and she'll admit, quite refreshingly for a serious actor, that she doesn't really know.

``I didn't want to be caught up in trying to mimic her, in trying to be her,'' explains Kidman, who nonetheless learned how to write right-handed, roll her own cigarettes and speak with a Bloomsbury accent for the job.

``I wanted to just be true to the emotions that I felt she was experiencing. It was strange how it all just kind of fell into place. It wasn't as technical as, 'Now I have to change my voice, now I have to do this or do that.' I didn't even work that much on the accent. It all just kind of came together; I'm not quite sure how!''

As she grows from a pretty starlet into a recognized great actress, Kidman exhibits none of the haughty affectations stereotypically associated with the breed. In fact, much like Streep and Moore, she's remarkably approachable, upfront and friendly. She laughs a lot, even in the middle of discussing painful topics, which makes her think she might be better off if she could do something about that.

``I'm not good at acting in real life,'' she confesses. ``I've got to get better at that. I tend to be very candid, and I'm not good at protecting or shielding myself, which I kind of have to become a little better at, I think. But it's my instinct; I love to meet people, I love to be around people, and I love to discuss things. I grew up in a family where we discussed everything.''

Born in Hawaii and raised in Australia and elsewhere, Kidman credits her parents, biochemist/psychologist Anthony and nursing teacher Janelle, with keeping her curious, calm and well-adjusted.

``Last year, when I was nominated for an Academy Award (for 'Moulin Rouge'), my parents said, 'We're not going to come; we're going on a bush walk for 10 days,' '' she recounts with glee. ``That's great, because I really wouldn't want parents who were like, 'Oh my God! Book the ticket!' Instead it's like, 'Hey, that's what you do. But you're our daughter, and we love you because you're our daughter, no matter what.' ''

Kidman says that no-nonsense family values have informed the current state of relations with Cruise.

``This is now about being parents, and trying to be the best parents that you can be,'' she says (they share custody of two adopted children, Isabella and Conor). But she admits that coming to terms with the dissolution of a 10-year marriage isn't easy.

``Yeah, I have,'' she says, shrugging. ``I don't have any choice. I mean, what are you going to do? You can choose to be loving and forgiving and kind, or you can choose to be angry. I would much prefer to choose to be loving, so that's what you get - a little bit of love.''

Speaking of which ... while Cruise quickly took up with his ``Vanilla Sky'' co-star Penelope Cruz, Kidman has yet to pursue a serious romantic relationship.

``Am I dating? I'm not, to be honest,'' she confesses, laughing and putting on a little desperate act at the same time. ``I mean, I'm taking care of my kids. Y'know, I'll go out to dinner or go to a movie, but I dunno ... Help!

``I'm just taking it slow. I have to take it slow. And why rush?''

One thing Kidman is confident of: She never could have done the volume of great work she's accomplished over the past two years if there were a man in her life.

``No, definitely not, because when you have a partner, you're devoted to that, and everything else is secondary,'' she admits. ``But I don't have that anymore, so that means I go, 'All right, what am I passionate about now?' I suppose that that's where I've now opened up to my work in a different way.''

As the work has opened up for her, in ways she acknowledges she'd always hoped it would, but never actually expected it to.

``There is a surprise factor to it. I'm stunned, I do have to say, that I've gotten this far. I say a lot, 'Is this really happening?' But I've given myself over to the unpredictable nature of life. I never count on anything anymore.''

With a combination of contentment and resignation, Kidman accepts the role of serious artist that life has chosen to cast her in now.

``I think you have to,'' she says. ``Katharine Hepburn said it: Do happiness and artistic creativity go together? I don't know. You have to live, and you have to be willing to experience things and delve into the emotions. You have to say, all right, I'm here and I'm alive and I'm feeling things. They may not be things that I want to feel, but we're all dark and we're all light and we're all flawed and, here, let's explore it and try to put it on screen.

``I do know that, at this moment in my life, there are so many things that are bubbling within me that I just feel it there inside me. It's to do with a lot of things that have happened, and I'm willing to explore it and put it into the work.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) her time to shine

An acclaimed turn in `The Hours' continues a streak of extraordinary performances from Nicole Kidman

(2) Nicole Kidman as author Virginia Woolf in ``The Hours.''