"While the other girls were down the beach, eyeing up the boys, Nicole Kidman spent her weekends at the Philip Street Theatre, watching, learning. She had her sights set on higher things -- as you'd expect from someone whose influences include Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and, above all, Katherine Hepburn -- and, indeed, she had her first kiss onstage in Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening. As the play concerned sexual repression in the late 1800's, it was something of a wild one too, Nicole [at age 13] having to yell 'Beat me! Harder! Harder!' each night..."

[One night, 14-year-old Nicole received a note of congratulations from a film student in the audience who invited her to appear in a short. Nicole declined, as it conflicted with her exams. The student? Jane Campion.]

[For her role in Dead Calm, Nicole Kidman arrived on the set a month early to learn how to sail. For her role in To Die For, she spent three days in a Santa Barbara inn -- watching nothing but trashy TV shows.]