Nicole Kidman: A Serious Contender?
This week’s attempt to upend Oscar boredom: proclaiming the Best Actress category a three-way race, with Nicole Kidman (“Rabbit Hole”) joining Annette Bening (“The Kids Are All Right”) and Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”). Read my lips: Kidman isn’t going to win a second Oscar before Mrs. Beatty wins her first one or before The Prettiest Girl in the Junior Class (Portman). Second Oscars That Defeat Benings happen only once in our lifetimes (Hilary Swank), and I’m still trying to erase that fact from my memory bank. Kidman won in 2002 for “The Hours” in part because of sympathy towards her because Tom Cruise had just dumped her. This year, by Kidman’s own admission, she’s happily married, to Keith Urban. So: no sympathy vote a second time. As LW’s Oscar prognosticator, Rex Okpodu, told me this morning, for Kidman to win a second Oscar “she will have to play a gay Holocaust victim imprisoned in a Nazi bordello.”
