Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
News that Nicole Kidman has been knocked from her position as the highest paid actress in Hollywood by Angelina 'lock up your husband' Jolie is truly shocking. Was Nicole Kidman really the highest paid actress?
As in Nicole Kidman who was in Days of Thunder and the Enya-soundtracked Oirish tosh Far and Away - that Nicole Kidman?
Kidman's slide down the list may have something to do with another list published earlier this year in which she was named the worst investment a movie can make. On average, according to Forbes, Kidman's films make only $1 for every dollar she is paid, compared with the $29 per dollar Matt Damon brings in.
Kidman is a bona fide A-lister - what, she may well be wondering, if struggling to furrow her seemingly immobile brow, has gone wrong?
This is known as Aniston's Law: just because an actress makes for an appealing magazine cover does not mean that people want to see them act.
There is a difference in wanting to read an actress slag off her ex-husband in an interview, and wanting to watch them do their best Scarlett-O'Hara-goes-to-the-Outback impression. This explains why Jennifer Aniston (for whom the Law was named, of course) pulls in readers of this month's US Vogue by describing Jolie as 'uncool' but does not exert the same appeal with say, Friends with Money. This also explains why Kidman's career shifted into top gear in 2001 (the year of The Others and Moulin Rouge) because that was when she and Tom Cruise divorced: suddenly she was on the cover of every magazine, leading to assumed A-list status.
Kidman has been in a scattering of biggish films - Batman Forever, Moulin Rouge - but many, many turkeys, with the upcoming Australia looking like it may reach the heights of embarrassment achieved by The Human Stain, Dogville and The Hours, for which she was given an Oscar for sticking on a prosthetic nose. The only movies in which she was properly good were The Others, and To Die For but that was because she was supposed to play a cold, emotionless and slightly scary woman in both, a part Kidman tricked out with aplomb.
So if anyone is casting round for a facially immobile ice queen, go to the now-bargain-basement Kidman. Worth every penny.
